


Somewhere on Your Road Tonight

by Jael



Series: Chances Are (1958) [5]
Category: DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Childbirth, Deja Vu, Episode s01e10: Progeny, Episode: s01e11 The Magnificent Eight, Episode: s01e12 Last Refuge, Episode: s01e13 Leviathan, Episode: s01e14 River of Time, Episode: s01e15 Destiny, Episode: s01e16 Legendary, Established Relationship, F/M, Found Family, Leonard Snart Lives, Minor Character Death, Multiverse, Panic Attacks, Past Child Abuse, Pregnancy, Sacrifice, Serious Injuries, Timey-Wimey, Younger selves
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-31
Updated: 2019-03-27
Packaged: 2019-07-04 23:35:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 19
Words: 99,718
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15851721
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jael/pseuds/Jael
Summary: Sara and Leonard made a life for themselves, together in 1958, after the Waverider left them, Ray and Kendra behind. But now they're back on the ship, Mick has been twisted into Chronos, Kendra is pregnant, and Savage is still out there. They'll deal--together. (Sequel to "Chances Are.")





	1. Prologue: Chances Are You'll Find Me

**Author's Note:**

> Sorry for the delay, but here, after long last, is the start to the sequel to my story "Chances Are," in which Leonard Snart was stuck in 1958 with Sara, Ray, and Kendra. Things go ...somewhat differently.
> 
> Many thanks to LarielRomeniel for the beta! Right now, the plan is for this prologue and eight chapters, but it's me, so it will probably be longer!
> 
> The title and chapter titles for that story came from the song "Chances Are" by Johnny Mathis (from 1958). There's another song called "Chances Are," by Bob Seger and Martina McBride, and after having it come up on my searches every time, I listened to it. (And it was perfect.) The titles and all chapter titles for this story will come from that one.

 

Raymond Palmer marries Kendra Saunders on the bridge of the timeship Waverider. He slides his grandmother's ring onto her finger and stares at her so long and so raptly that Martin Stein, who's officiating, gently reminds him to breathe. Kendra Saunders, wearing a white lace dress created by Gideon and nearly eight months pregnant, marries Raymond Palmer, repeating her vows in a calm, happy voice.

They kiss as Stein pronounces them man and wife, in front of a tiny audience consisting of an amused crook, a smiling assassin, a harried-looking former Time Master, and one wistful young mechanic. Jax snaps a photo of them, though, as they turn toward the audience, and hugs them both before heading back to the work he's doing converting a few rooms. Hunter vanishes, too, after a murmured congratulations, leaving a bemused Leonard Snart and Sara Lance to sign the witness portions of the marriage license along with Stein. (Gideon had created the license to look duly "official," telling them they could drop it off back in Star or Central when they return.)

Leonard tolerates a hug from Raymond and actually returns a hug from Kendra, a smile lurking around the corners of his mouth. Sara, watching, can't help but smile in return. At least he's looking more lifelike then he had before they went back to Orange City…and then Nickel.

She wonders what Rebecca had said to him.

She considers pointing out that, by signing the license, he's effectively Ray's best man. But given the general role of the best man—that of the best friend—and the fact that Leonard's own oldest friend is now barely himself, cooling his heels in the brig…well, it doesn't seem like the best idea.

Stein, to whom she's barely spoken since they'd returned after nearly a year in the 1950s, joins her then, smiling a little wistfully himself. Sara wonders if he's thinking about his wife, back in 2017. No, 2016. It had only been a matter of minutes for the Waverider, after all. Time travel can still make her head hurt, especially now.

"Mr. Snart has changed," he says quietly, glancing at her. "As have you, to an extent. Was it truly…"

"Nearly a year?" Sara sighs. "Yes. As evidenced by…" She motions toward Kendra, who's speaking quietly and earnestly to Leonard, and her advanced pregnancy. "It was…" She pauses, then decides she respects Stein enough to give him the truth. "Good, in many ways. Very good. Which sounds a little odd, I guess, given what I said to you back in Harmony Falls…"

"But you and Mr. Snart. You had…time." Stein gives her a tiny, lurking smile, not so much unlike Leonard's, actually. "I do understand. It was there before, really, you know. The signs."

Sara eyes him. "Oh?"

"Oh, yes." Stein winks at her. "And, yes, I suspect neither of you  _completely_  meet those…parameters…you mentioned back in that diner. Didn't matter. You found a place for yourselves. I'm almost sorry we pulled you out of it."

"Don't be." Sara sighs. "You're right. But this is where we belong." She watches Leonard as he says something to Ray and Kendra laughs.

"Hmm." The professor gives her another sidelong look. "And how is Mr. Snart dealing with…well…"

It's the elephant in the room…or the bounty hunter in the brig. "Better than he might have, actually. At least he's confronted…Mick. Spoken to him." She will never call him Chronos. Mick's still in there. He has to be. "Although he hasn't really gotten through much yet."

Stein frowns. "He…Mr. Rory…seemed convinced Mr. Snart was on the Waverider when he took it. It was his distraction when he realized otherwise that allowed Firestorm to overpower him." He shakes his head. "His distraction…and his rage."

Sara knows that, although she's been giving Leonard space to deal with his friend on his own. Still, an answering anger sparks in her at Stein's words. "What the hell choice does he think Leonard had? To kill him? That was never going to happen. And he meant to go back…"

Her voice trails off, though. Stein considers her. "You knew all along," he says. "That Mr. Snart didn't… kill him."

There's no judgment there, and it's far more a comment than a question, but Sara nods. Then they both quiet as Leonard saunters over toward them.

"Professor," he drawls, nodding to Stein. "Nice ceremony."

"Yes, well, it served the purpose." Stein studies him. "Dr. Palmer and Ms….ah, Mrs. Palmer, I suppose it is now…told me a little about your stay in 1958. A security business, was it? And a women's shelter?"

It's a story, to Stein, bare information with some amusement value, given Leonard's past-but to Sara, the words still evoke a swirl of emotions. The headlong flight from Harmony Falls. Gotham. Rebecca and Ginny and the others. The blue house with her studio and their big king bed. She glances at Leonard and sees the same emotion, just a flicker, in his eyes.

But he merely clears his throat. "Ah, professor, if you could…neglect to mention that when you see Barry Allen and his crew again, I would greatly appreciate it."

Stein smiles, just a little. "Well. Given that that seems to be…valuable information…perhaps I can see fit to withhold it. Given adequate…motivation."

Sara is startled into a laugh, while Leonard coughs in surprise.

"Professor, are you  _blackmailing_  me?" he manages.

"That depends, Mr. Snart. Is it working?"

* * *

Gideon has promised cake and champagne in the galley later, but the AI (who seems almost intrigued by the notion of the wedding) is distracted by Rip's course to the Kasnian Conglomerate in 2147. The team members disperse in the meantime, and Sara watches Leonard hesitate in the hallway, looking down the corridor to the brig.

She reaches out and takes his hand before he can go that way, though, and tugs, turning without words to head back to her room. Leonard, equally silent, allows her to lead him there and through the door, sighing at it closes behind them.

He hasn't slept in his own room since they got back, and his presence here is clear: his bag on the floor near her desk, his jacket on the chair, the cold gun in its case right by Sara's weapons rack. Jax, grinning, has promised to convert their room to one more suited to cohabitation, but he's working on Ray and Kendra's first, and Sara certainly isn't going to get between the pregnant woman and the bigger bed.

Still. Sara would rather put up with the close quarters for the moment rather than sleep alone right now. And Leonard apparently feels the same.

"Well, they're hitched," the man in question says in a mumble, rubbing his face with a hand. "Maybe now Raymond will chill out a little."

Given that Ray's pregnant wife is still being hunted by an immortal warlord and has to find a way to kill said warlord to fulfill their mission, Sara doubts it. And she knows Leonard knows better. But she doesn't comment. On that, anyway.

"Take off your jacket," she orders instead, hopping up to perch on the edge of the bed. "And c'mere."

Len lifts an eyebrow at her, then shrugs, doing as told. He drapes his black suit coat over the leather jacket on the chair, then strolls toward her, curiosity warring with trepidation and amusement in his eyes.

Sara motions for him to turn around and, after only a second, he does—not quite close enough. She sighs and reaches out, grabbing a handful of his white dress shirt and dragging him back toward her, a liberty he takes with slightly surprising equanimity as she pulls him back between her knees.

As she expected, the shoulders underneath the shirt are rigid with tension, a tension that she'd seen return slowly and steadily since they'd returned from their 2015 visit to Orange City. Leonard has a way of looking relaxed even when he isn't, another sort of armor, but Sara can see it. And right now, he's exuding pain to her discerning eye, the sort of pain that comes with angry muscles and holding too much in.

After only a moment, though, Sara pokes him in the shoulder. "Shirt off," she tells him as he grumbles at her. "If you want me to help, do it. You know I can if you give me a chance."

There's almost amusement in the look he gives her, then, but he complies, stripping off the shirt in something just shy of a performance. (Hell, Sara's not complaining.) Then he turns again, leaning against the bed with a sigh, as she reaches out to knead the muscles of his shoulders.

How far they've come, Sara thinks, gently brushing the pad of her thumb over one of his many scars, this one a jagged line across his shoulder blade. This is the man who, even with the lights off, tried to sleep in jeans and a sweater and jacket, their first night on the road back in 1958.

She's done this before, now, and she knows the right ways to work the muscles to get them to loosen up. She'd like to think, too, that her touch has become a comfort, and she does hear his breathing settle a little as she works, feels him leaning back a little into her, drawing strength from her presence.

A comfort and more.

So Sara doesn't consider long before, after she's pretty sure Len's shoulders are as loose as she can manage, she reaches around, running her hands down his chest and leaning forward to nip gently at the side of his neck before kissing that spot in a particularly lingering way.

They may have slept together the few nights they've been back on the ship, but that's all it's been—sleeping. She's become used to amazing, plentiful sex, and she already misses it—and she's pretty sure Len does too. She's just not sure, given his distinctly private nature, if these sorts of activities on a ship with six other people will bother him.

She feels his intake of breath and then, to her relief, hears and feels a small chuckle. Then he turns fluidly in her arms and suddenly, they're nearly face to face. (Despite her perch, Sara's still shorter.)

Len brings his hand up to cup Sara's face, his touch gentle even though the smirk on his face is suggestive as hell.

"What?" he murmurs, voice low and intense and sending a pleasurable shiver down her spine. "Going through withdrawal already?"

"And you're not?" She leans into the touch, flattening her hands against his back and pressing him closer. He's warm and solid under her hands, muscle moving under surprisingly soft skin, and as he brings his other hand up to rest at her hip, she moves her hands down, resting them at the waistband of his pants.

Len licks his lips, slowly and too damned deliberately. Sara knows her eyes go to his mouth as he does that, and she rolls her eyes as his smirk grows.

"I didn't say that," he drawls. "But…now?"

"Sounds like when we get to this Kasnian Conglomerate, things are going to get…stressful. I think we should…" Sara lets her hands drift south, smirking herself at the far less controlled intake of breath. "…take the time while we have it."

"Can't argue with that." He leans forward to kiss her, and one of Sara's hands comes up to curve around the back of his neck, and that's all the talking they do for a while.

* * *

It may be the middle of the day in ship's time, but Leonard drifts off to sleep, after, and Sara's unsurprised. Not only are they still getting used to a return to that schedule, he's been tense and stressed over Mick, and his sleep has been restless.

She dozes a bit herself, then watches Leonard sleep for a few minutes longer. He looks relaxed and peaceful in a way he rarely does while awake, especially now, with the issue of Mick hanging over him, and she feels anger at the other man flicker again. Regret follows it nearly immediately.

Then she gets up, dresses, and heads for the brig.

* * *

It's the second time she's been in here, but the first was while Mick was out, Gideon having tranquilized him after an outburst. She'd just needed to prove to herself that it really was him, that the others hadn't been wrong or mistaken or misled.

It was unmistakably Mick. Just as it as now, but now he's awake and leading against the wall and watching her intently as she crosses the room to stand across from him outside the cell.

"Ah," he says after a moment, tone almost jovial. "Sara. Finally someone who can do a man's job."

Sara stuffs the flicker of anger back down behind the façade. "Mick," she says coolly, studying him.

That's all, and as the silence draws out, it's evident that this is indeed a somewhat changed Mick. The old one would have been restless and raging by now. This one…waits.

Sara can wait too, though, and they study each other through the clear wall. And it's Mick who caves first.

"So," he says finally. "What brings you in, Blondie? Wantin' to see if there's somethin' that 'can be saved?'" He snorts. "I'm saved. The Time Masters saved me, after you all dumped me out to die like a rabid dog and didn't even have the decency to finish the job."

"Leonard…" Sara starts, but Mick cuts her off.

" _Him_." There's so much scorn in the word. "He wussed out on it. Shoulda sent you." He gives her a measuring look. "You wouldn't have, would you, Blondie? Chickened out? You get it. Sometimes you gotta put people down. I thought Snart got that." He chuckles, and it manages to be a very scary sound. "An' now he's going to pay."

The words bring up all manner of bad thoughts and memories, but Sara stifles them.

"He was going to come back," she says, fixing her with her best glare. "You know, while you were…"

But Mick breaks in again. Sara's getting really tired of that.

"Bullshit," he snorts. "He's gone soft. Wants to be a 'hero' now. Wish I'd offed that damned Flash before he ever started feeding Snart that line."

Sara thinks of 19 Gabriel Drive and how hard Len had worked back in 1958, to start over, to build a life with that clean slate…

"You do realize you're the reason he couldn't come back," she says, her tone just this side of a snap. "Kind of hard to time travel when you're stuck in the 1950s. Or did you expect him to make another miracle happen and build a time machine from scratch?"

But a moment after the words have left her mouth, Sara realizes that, no, Mick hadn't realized that. Maybe he'd thought Leonard was hidden on the Waverider, or that he'd been on the jump ship, or something. But it hadn't, for some bizarre reason, even occurred to the big man that he'd been with them, Sara, Ray, and Kendra, on the ground, in 1958.

Mick stares at her, his expression honestly stunned for a few moments. Then it hardens, coalesces into anger and something more complicated.

"You," he says, getting to his feet. "It was you."

Sara frowns. "Excuse me?"

But the calm, controlled bounty hunter is fading now. This is something else, a meld of the real Mick at his worst and the violence of Chronos on the attack.

"This is all because of you," he growls, approaching the front of the cell. "He was with  _you_."

"Mick…"

"Just like he wanted to help  _you_  in Star City. And just like it was  _you_  in Russia,  _you_  on the ship…"

His voice isn't rising, but it's becoming more intense, more pent up with rage. Sara, a touch surprised, watches her former friend as he stares at her, eyes narrowing and seething, trying to figure out just what's going on.

And then, of course, Leonard himself chooses that prime inopportune moment to make an appearance, running into the brig in a fashion so utterly unlike his usual controlled grace that both of them turn to stare at him instead.

Len, taking in the scene, stops short, giving himself a shake not unlike a ruffled cat and turning his headlong dash into an insolent stroll. He crosses to Sara (who notes with amusement that his shirt is partly unbuttoned—and partly misbuttoned) and then turns to regard Mick with the steely, blank look she hasn't missed on him at all.

"Everything all right here?" he drawls, folding his arms.

Mick's eyes nearly bug out of his head, he looks so pissed. Sara decides to follow suit in hopes of getting further genuine reaction out of him. Catharsis is good, right?

"He blames me. For  _your_  actions, such as leaving him behind for the Time Masters to find," she tells Leonard, layering amusement in her tone. "After he blamed you for not killing him, of course. Which seems a bit off-base, but…"

But Mick brings up both hands and smashes them against the clear material of the wall then, with a bellow of rage. Leonard flinches. Sara doesn't.

"You were supposed to be  _on_   _the_   _ship_!" Mick shouts at Leonard. " _They_  said you would be on the ship! They promised! It was planned." He drags in a breath. "Why did you leave? You had no reason to leave." He looks at Sara again, but the earlier nastiness has been replaced by baffled confusion.

"He was supposed to be on the ship," he tells her in an almost conversational tone as she frowns. "That was how it was  _supposed_  to be." Then, with a grunt of apparent pain, he brings his hands up to his head, closing his eyes and almost reeling backward, sinking down against the wall again.

"Gideon?" Leonard asks, concern in his voice as he steps closer.

"Mr. Rory's brain waves are…odd," the AI responds after a moment. "He seems to be in no danger, but it is causing a notable headache. I can provide some painkillers."

"But why?" Sara's still focused on Mick's words. "Is he…fighting it? The programming?"

That gets a chuckle, slightly nasty again, as Mick lowers his hands. He still winces with pain, though, and Sara notices.

"They didn't have to 'program' me much, Blondie," he tells her, tauntingly. "I  _wanted_  the chance to kill you all."

They all ignore him.

"Perhaps," Gideon says after a moment. "Something is warring with the…the newer patterns of his brain waves, the ones that are more indicative of the Chronos persona." Mick grumbles something about that, too, but she continues. "I will compare the readings to other information I have on file."

"Thank you, Gideon." Leonard's voice is quiet. He stares at Mick a moment longer, and the other man stares back. Sara, uncertain whether to leave or stay, to speak or hold her peace, watches them.

Gideon, though, breaks the tableau yet again. "Captain Hunter says the next time jump will take place as soon as everyone is on the bridge," she tells them. "Except for you, of course, Mr. Rory. Please strap in over by the far wall."

Mick lets out a snort, then turns away, crossing the cell and following the order for once. Sara and Len exchange glances and then leave without another word, heading for the bridge.

Sara reaches out to take his hand, squeezing gently, as soon as they leave the brig.

"There's something more going on here," she says to him, quietly.

Leonard's mouth is a straight, pained line, but he squeezes her hand in return.

"I know," he says in return. "But…what?"


	2. Ever Since I've Known You

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter and the next one both take place during the events of "Progeny." Some of the dialogue is from that episode, but...remixed, shall we say?
> 
> Many thanks to LarielRomeniel for the beta and some excellent suggestions!
> 
> And happy birthday to Tavyn. :) Sorry it wasn't the separate story I'd originally planned, but my muse was obsessed by these chapters.

It's almost comforting, really, how familiar it is as Rip paces back and forth before them. The whole team (well, bar Mick) this time, not just the noted troublemakers, but…still.

Leonard slouches in a jump seat and watches the captain. Sara's in the seat next to him. Her eyes sparkle a little with mischief as she glances at him, and it's good to see, especially since he's still struggling to maintain his own equilibrium in the wake of the confrontation with Mick.

His partner's—former partner, he supposes—angry insistence that Leonard was supposed to be on the Waverider when Mick took it, stranding the others in 1958, keeps niggling at him. Why and how would Mick think that? As far as Leonard can parse out (and he's been thinking about it a great deal), nothing in particular had spurred him to leave the ship and meet Sara and the others instead of staying on board.

Well…or maybe Mick is right, after all. Leonard, still uneasy and at sea after leaving Mick behind, had gravitated to the one person whose company he'd really wanted—Sara. But still, it hadn't been something he'd really thought out.

Had he?

But Rip gives an even more put-upon sigh at that point and leans on the holotable, and Leonard transfers his full attention to the captain for once. The former Time Master looks almost calm, that particular state of calm that comes from reaching a point of "this is all going to hell and that's that," and Leonard almost feels a flicker of sympathy.

Almost. Jax—after his own long visit to the brig—had told him what had sent Mick off the deep end on the Acheron, after all. Mick's dramatic reaction to Rip's words had been overkill, in Leonard's mind—Mick, after all, had insisted he wasn't interested in saving the world-but Leonard isn't letting the captain off the hook.

"Well," Rip says with a sigh, scanning them, "I suppose we need to talk about the elephant in the room."

Sara and Stein both wince at his wording and Leonard and Jax snort and Raymond bristles, but Kendra, sitting in her own jump seat, laughs.

"Rip," she says with amusement, leaning back a little, "that's not really a good word to use in reference to a woman who's more than eight months pregnant, no matter what the context."

Rip stares at her a moment, then groans, lowering his head to his hands.

"You're right, of course, Ms. Saun…Palmer," he admits, voice muffled. "Mir…I remember. And I apologize." He looks up. "But you  _are_  quite pregnant, and you  _are_  our only real way to defeat Savage. And we need to reconcile those two things if we are to have any hope of completing our mission."

Kendra nods at that. "I know," she says quietly, resting her hand on her abdomen. "Well. I won't be pregnant much longer." A fond smile crosses her face, followed by something more complicated. "But neither do I want to take on Savage with a newborn in tow, and it will take some time and training to get back in fighting shape."

Raymond makes a pained noise, but he's smart enough not to audibly contradict Kendra. Leonard notices Sara glancing at her friend and remembers that Sara had given Kendra much of her training.

"I do have a thought about that," Rip allows. "I'm still…trying to figure some things out. But, in the meantime, we're here in 2147." He straightens and nods, reaching for some measure of authority again. "And on our way to the Kasian Conglomerate."

"Which is…?" Leonard drawls, knowing he's giving voice to what they're all wondering. He may have…softened…somewhat (though he prefers to think that he's simply expanded his range of concerns), but someone still needs to keep Hunter on his toes.

"By the year 2080, government began to give way to corporations." Hunter nods. "In 20 years, Kasnia is the foothold from which Savage takes over the world." He lifts a hand to forestall them. "And according to Gideon, in two hours, our favorite immortal psychopath is scheduled to attend a meeting of the Conglomerate's shareholders."

"Ooh, sounds exciting," Sara mutters, while Jax chimes in with "You think Savage takes over the world by  _trading_   _stocks_?"

Hunter rolls his eyes at them. "We hardly want to take him on during his rise," he concludes, "but if we can figure out how his actions here lead to his rise to power, then we won't need to."

Kendra looks intrigued. "So…I might not have to fight him?"

"Not yet, anyway." Hunter nods as Gideon informs him that they're landing. "Gideon knows what the typical garb is like during this time, so…ah, Ms. Saun….Mrs. Palmer, that's going to take some getting used to…"

"I don't care what you call me," Kendra informs him tartly as Raymond nods staunchly besides her. "And who said I was changing my name?"

"…at any rate, it might be best if you stay here." Hunter holds his hands out and shrugs. "Given that we don't know precisely where else Savage will be or what he's doing. If he sees you…especially pregnant with another man's child…"

"I take your point," Kendra murmurs, while Sara folds her arms and takes a deep breath, Raymond looks horrified and Stein and Jax both, in unison, curse…and then look, startled, at each other. Leonard tries to keep his poker face, which isn't as hard as it might seem. He's known evil before. Savage is evil.

"He'd really…yeah, he would, wouldn't he?" the inventor says, sounding rattled. "Should I stay with you? Um. Someone should, right?"

"I'll be fine, Ray," Kendra says even as Rip asserts that Gideon will alert them as needed and that their first foray won't take long.

"But." Raymond looks at Leonard, wearing an apologetic expression that makes the other man sigh. "Well. Mick. If he…could he…"

Leonard ignores Rip's protests (and Gideon's) and gives the halting question due thought, even as Kendra says patiently, again, that she'll be fine and the others murmur amongst themselves.

"I don't think Mick at even his most pissed off would hurt you," he says, meeting Kendra's steady gaze. She deserves the truth as far as he can figure it. "But we've established that maybe…maybe I didn't know Mick as well as I thought I did. And I don't know Chronos at all."

Silence follows that rather unSnartlike admission. Kendra regards him seriously a moment, then nods.

"I understand," she tells him quietly. "But…" She looks up at Raymond. "…I'll be OK. You're also supposing that Mick  _could_  get out, and that Gideon couldn't…take care of him. And I'm not helpless, even now." She winks at Sara. "I'll be fine."

"But…"

" _Fine_ , Ray."

* * *

Sara isn't fond of the woolen garb that Gideon manufactures them for 2147. It's warm and a bit scratchy (more than 100 years past her time and no one's figured out how to counteract that) and apparently comes in two colors: gray and black. As they dress, she jokes to Leonard that it's just his style, though, and gets one of those side-smirks in response as he buttons up his coat.

She'll take it. The thing with Mick continues to wear at him, and the shadows in his eyes continue to grow.

Jax dislikes the clothing every bit as much as Sara does, and they fall into step with each other as they leave the ship, unable to resist joking about Stein's inevitable reaction to 2147. She'd missed the younger Legend, Sara thinks, grinning as the other half of Firestorm performs exactly as expected.

"The future is..."

"Astonishing!" Sara comments, just as Jax chimes in with "Fascinating!" and Stein, sighing, shakes his head at them.

"Actually, I was going to say remarkable," the older man grumbles good-naturedly.

Rip, who's strolling along in front of the group and looking about him with an air of mingled melancholy and affection, sighs too.

"Isn't it?" he says. "2147 was considered the world's zenith." Another sigh as he glances about. "All of these people have five good years to look forward to."

"Before what?" Leonard, of course, has to be the one to ask.

"Before a ruthless dictator named Per Degaton comes to power, releases the Armageddon virus, and most of them end up dead," Rip informs them, sounding far too blasé about the fact. Well, Sara supposes, if you're used to looking at it as history, it's not quite as immediate.

She's spent too much time in a year that was decades before she was born to ever look at history the same way again, though. "Well, that's depressing," she mutters, getting a nod from Jax—who then whirls at a noise from above them.

"Whoa," he breathes, as Stein sidles closer and the others all move their hands closer to their respective weapons—whether or not those weapons are actually there.

"Is that my suit?" Ray asks a bit plaintively, looking up. "That's my suit!"

The team members, uniformly uneasy, watch as they get a firsthand look at what happens when one violates Ordinance 12 (whatever that is) in the Kasnian Conglomerate. Rip shrugs at all the looks darted at him, but even he looks a bit unsettled.

"This," he says, watching the automated figures, which do indeed look an awful lot like Ray's Atom suit, "is how Per Degaton's father, Tor, maintains order in Kasnia."

"Doesn't look like progress to me," Leonard mutters. Sara glances at him, reading the discomfort and distraction in his voice. He glances back at her, a flicker in his eyes before he glances away again.

Rip, though, is still a man on a mission, no matter how distracted his team is. "Speaking of progress, we need to get a better lay of the land," the captain says, clapping his hands together.

"And I need to get a better look at how they made my suit autonomous," Ray interjects, concern on his face.

"Well, why don't you take Martin and Jax with you?" Rip nods, still lost in his own thoughts. "Ms. Lance, Mr. Snart and I will work on locating Savage."

* * *

While Rip somehow has the…contacts…to get into a meeting of the Kasnia board of directors, however, his "accountant" and "personal assist…bodyguard" have to stay behind. Sara gives Leonard a pointed look and steps aside, and he joins her as they move back along the corridors of Kasnia's center of government, or business, or whatever it is.

He'd observed once, a year or 189 years ago, that Sara was just as adept at pretending she belonged somewhere as any talented thief. She glides along the corridor now, looking dangerous but as calm, aware and in control as any good bodyguard, and he follows, concealing his smirk and trying to look like the sort of accountant type who'd be grateful for such protection.

Well. He  _is_  good with numbers.

Sara leads them both outside, and Leonard relaxes a tiny bit as she does so. Rip had dismissed the notion of listening devices in the hallways, but Leonard had been unnerved by the fact that he wasn't likely to recognize such things even if they were there. Presumably, they've changed over the years.

Sara moves a little way away from the entry, into a small, park-like, grassy area, and takes a deep breath, going off her guard a little. She glances at him, leaning back against a small tree, and Leonard joins her, letting their arms brush a little as they watch the building.

"So," Sara muses after a moment, "d'you think it'd look a bit odd if Mr. Shareholder's bodyguard and accountant decided to, y'know, go get a room somewhere? While he's in the meeting?" Her tone is light and teasing, but her eyes are serious as she scans the area, looking for entrances and exits, windows and vantage points. Leonard, after a moment's consideration, chooses to follow her lead in both ways.

"Oooh, exciting," he drawls, teasing back even as he does the same. "So, is this an…illicit…affair between the two employees? Something they're carrying on behind Mr. Shareholder's back? Kisses in dark corners and quickies while the boss is in the loo?"

His words startle Sara into a laugh. "In the loo? You've been listening to Rip too much." She darts him a quick smile as he snorts. "And that's hardly worth my time."

"Cut me a break. I'm improvising."

But Sara's apparently finished her inspection of the building and is now watching him intently again, with a considering expression that makes him glance away uncomfortably. They may be together, a team and a couple, but this thing with Mick trips a lot of his own issues and he's struggling. She knows it, and he knows it, but that doesn't mean he really wants to talk about it.

"How are you?" she asks quietly.

He gives her a smirk and his habitual nonresponse. "Peachy."

But Sara, after all their time together, is patient in the ways of Snart issue avoidance. She lifts an eyebrow and gives him that smile that tells him she sees through all his bullshit and that she's letting him get away with it for now-but that it won't last forever.

He, in return, gives her the shrug that says that he knows it...but he's not ready yet, either. It might not be perfectly functional—but it works for them.

And then Rip's back, strolling toward them from the building at something just shy of a run, a bit wild around the eyes and urgent with the need to get back to the ship and discuss what he's learned and what—and whom—he's seen.

* * *

"He's a teacher," Sara marvels, once they're back in Rip's study, where Kendra has joined them, Rip judging (correctly in Sara's estimation) that she more than anyone else should know what Savage seems to be up to.

"Tutor, it would seem, to young Per Degaton himself," Rip acknowledges, pacing again. Sara really can't blame him. Seeing his old enemy here, when he'd known it would happen, must still be unnerving. Even Leonard, who's never been inclined to cut the other man much slack, seems to bite back his usual snarky manner and what he'd originally been planning to say.

"You mentioned that name before," he says tersely. "Tell, Rip."

The captain sighs, pausing. "After the death of his father in five years' time, Per Degaton unleashes the Armageddon virus, which decimates the world's population, leaving it ripe for conquest," he says in his faintly lecturing "Time Master" tone. "As I said before. But now...apparently it was part of a longer game than I realized."

Leonard makes a considering noise at that, and the two men—who are far more alike than they'll ever acknowledge, Sara thinks—share a glance.

"Per Degaton primes the world for dictatorship, and then when the time is right..." Rip concludes.

"...Savage snatches that power away from him," Leonard notes, glancing at Sara, who nods.

"By killing Per Degaton," she adds.

"Indeed." Rip sighs again, running a hand over his face.

Kendra leans against Rip's desk, rubbing her back. "OK," she says, thoughtfully, "so we don't have what we need to take out Savage—even if I could right now—but maybe now we can figure out a way to stop his rise to power." She shrugs. "That's the problem with long games, isn't it? More time for things to go wrong?"

Leonard gives her a look of respect and Kendra smirks back at him. "Now that I have more of my memories from past lives," she notes, "well, that's a thing I understand."

Rip nods to both of them, but he looks distracted, Sara thinks, and a little more disturbed even than before. Sara glances at Leonard, noting that he has a similar expression on his face—and she has an uneasy feeling she's starting to suspect why.

She's the assassin, after all.

Rip finally sighs.

"What if we deprive Savage of his springboard, Per Degaton?" he says quietly, staring at a sword in one of his display cases. "It's...quite simple, really."

Everyone in the study is quiet. But his meaning is unmistakable.

* * *

The idea, predictably, doesn't go over well.

"To be clear, we're talking about murdering a child!" Stein says, distress in his tone as he crosses the bridge not long later. "Who..."

"Who hasn't done anything to anyone," Jax adds, sitting down in a jump seat and crossing his arms.

 _Yet_ , Sara thinks from her own perch, glancing at Leonard. Her lover is doing his best to ignore the others, staring at some headlines of the time that Gideon had pulled up for him, his jaw clenched and a muscle ticking in it steadily. He hasn't chimed in at all, yet, and his mental conflict is obvious, at least to her.

Leonard's pragmatic, to a fault sometimes, and they both know this is the simplest way to handle the issue. And maybe once, a harder, colder Leonard Snart would have been in with few reservations.

But  _this_ is a Leonard Snart who'd gone to great pains to convince another young boy that his past did not define him, that he didn't have to be like his father, that he could go on to be a good man. And while Leonard is many things, Sara knows he's not fond of the notion of being a hypocrite.

That David Jacobi, however, had adopted Leonard Snart as his substitute role model while Per Degaton had apparently handed Vandal Savage that role is some something she's not going to point out right now. Leonard would probably be the first one to point out that preteen or teenage boys aren't exactly always the best judges of character.

(For some reason at that moment, she thinks of Mick, only 16 when he'd saved the life of a 14-year-old skinny, scrappy Leonard Snart.)

"There's got to be a better way," Kendra says helplessly, resting a hand on her abdomen as if barely aware of the gesture. Is she imagining her unborn child as the kid in question? Uncomfortable and torn, Sara glances away.

Ray comes up to join his wife, discomfort on his own face. He's still upset about his Atom suits, and this just seems to be compounding his unhappiness.

"How do we even know that this Per Degaton kid's path to becoming a world-ruling dictator is inevitable?" he asks.

Footsteps herald Rip's return and the team turns to watch the Time Master stalk across the room.

"Because in the future that I'm from," the captain says unhappily, glancing at them, "children learn about Per Degaton in the same way that children in your time learn about Adolf Hitler."

Stein frowns at the reference but doesn't back down. "What about addressing the larger societal problems that would allow such a despot's rise to power?"

It's so very impractical and just...Stein...that Sara starts to respond against her better judgment, but that's when Leonard finally speaks up again.

"We already know what pushes this...kid...to the dark side," he says tersely. "Savage."

Jax frowns at him, looking somehow disappointed. "Look, it's not the kid's fault he's got an immortal psychopath as his tutor," he retorts.

Leonard gives him a look, then finally glances at Sara again. Understanding crosses between them and Sara sighs, physically crossing the room to join him, practicality warring with her better nature.

"Savage kills this kid as soon as he's done using him to take over the world," she says, giving voice to what she's pretty sure they're both thinking.

Leonard finishes the thought. "Could we turn him against from Savage?" he asks, tone harsh. "No honor among psychopaths, after all."

Rip frowns. "Perhaps. I don't know how long he's been working on getting his...his hooks...into the boy," he admits, reluctantly. "Savage has spent years corrupting his mind. He seemed to look up to Savage. It may simply be...beyond hope."

"OK, that's not a good sign," Ray mutters. "But…I mean…is anyone  _really_  beyond hope? Except maybe Savage himself."

Stein draws himself up and sets his shoulders, glancing around at the rest of them and then staring Rip down.

"Murdering a child in cold blood just like Savage murdered your own son?" he asks quietly, and Sara winces at the words. "What's the use in saving the world if we stoop to his methods to do so?"

Ray nods. "I'm with Professor Stein." Jax murmurs in agreement as well.

Kendra, who knows Savage better than any of them and is carrying a child that the immortal would kill as soon as look at, is notably quiet, Sara notices. She exchanges a glance with Leonard, who still wears his conflict on his face for those who know how to read him.

After a moment, though, Leonard shrugs.

"OK, fine," he said irritably. "If we're not going to kill this kid..."

Rip nods, hopping right in as if reading his mind. "Then removing him from the timeline might be the next best thing."

Postures relax throughout the room, but Sara still has an uncanny feeling they're all missing something. She meets Kendra's eyes, then thinks about Leonard's earlier assertion to her that they're also missing something with the Mick situation.

She doesn't have long to consider it, though. She and Leonard call dibs (or have dibs called for them) on Team Kidnapping with Rip, while Ray, Jax and Stein take on Team Robot Army and Kendra resigns herself again to being stuck on the ship.

Go team.

* * *

Leonard's stomach is churning. And for the first time in a while, now, he's concealing it all, hiding behind the cold façade that's served him so well, because…

Well, he knows perfectly well he doesn't need to hide it from Sara. He's pretty sure she's got him dead to rights anyway, judging from her glances earlier. And he's not sure why he feels he needs to conceal it from the team, because, really, why? What possible ill would it do, to have them know he's iffy on killing a 14-year-old kid? It's a pretty low moral bar to meet, after all.

Leonard sits in his old room, lights off, head leaned back against the wall, eyes closed. While he knows he could have gone to the room he now shares with Sara—she knows when to give him space; they'd shared a house for months, after all—he'd come here instead, and it doesn't take a genius to figure out why. The corners of his mouth turn up in a grim smile, almost involuntarily. Their shared space, spaces, whatever, are, in his own head, for the "new" Leonard Snart, the changed man. The turmoil he's wrestling with now seems like it shouldn't intrude into that Snart's life in any way.

A good man wouldn't really struggle with the question of offing a kid—would he? The image of David Jacobi, at 12 and not the 35-year-old writer he'd last spoken to, rises in memory—and so does his gorge, acid in his throat, self-revulsion in his soul.

He's always held hard to keeping his people from hurting anyone they didn't have to. That was Lewis' way, and Leonard would take a bullet himself before he'd let himself get equated with Lewis in any way, shape, or form.

Even when he'd taken out that train (stupid move,  _stupid_ ) back in those first heady days of cat and mouse with the Flash, he'd known the speedster would save every passenger, had calculated it as well as he was able, which was pretty well indeed. He'd miscalculated once, in the theater before that, and no one else needs to know it's a moment that still haunts his dreams.

Still, all the cold logic in Leonard's head tells him they need to get rid of this kid, this Per Degaton, this "baby Hitler," as Raymond had so fittingly called him. And, while he's never been one to be so…undiscriminating…even in the pursuit of a heist, this goes far beyond even the richest haul.

This is the world they're talking about.

And this is the team. And Leonard knows, even if the true heroes haven't let themselves think of it, that the longer this whole mission goes, the more likely it is that one of them gets damaged beyond even Gideon's repair, or killed. And heaven help him, he doesn't want any of them to get killed. He'd protect Sara (who doesn't need protecting, but still) with the last breath in his body, but even the others, Stein and Jax and Raymond and Kendra and the unborn kid—he wants none of them hurt.

Not even Hunter, as much as they clash. And not Mick. Oh, hell, not Mick again. They're all his people now, to one extent or another.

But how can he reconcile that with what every instinct tells him needs to be done?

He doesn't know.

So he sits, there in the dark, until Gideon quietly tells him that both Sara and Rip are looking for him.

Time for a kidnapping.

* * *

Ray is a good person. One of the most genuinely good people Kendra thinks she's had the privilege to meet, in this life and in most of the past ones.

Knowing that, she can't blame him for his reaction to Rip's thoughts about Per Degaton. She'd had the same kneejerk reaction, after all, she thinks wistfully, resting her hand on her stomach as she leans against the holotable and feeling the baby kick sharply against the faint pressure.

Impossible, especially at this point, not to listen to talk about...she frowns, determined not to use euphemisms, not even in her thoughts...about murdering a young boy and not think of her child, about the children she's had before. Aldus and fainter in memory, Mia and Ben, Celia and Amr and others. Mostly just flickers, but there if she concentrates.

Like, weirdly enough, Savage. He's here. She can sense him. Her hand clenches into a fist.

Kendra would like to think she's a good person, too. But she's lived too long across too many lifetimes to not have a streak of pragmatism that Ray doesn't quite manage. It may make him a better person, but he's never had to see his child die. The death of his fiancée marked him, but a child...a child is different.

Kendra knows that.

And she'd do almost anything to protect her son this time.

Ray had sensed something off in her demeanor and hovered a bit, trying in his own awkward, beloved way to commiserate. But she'd reassured him, and he'd wandered off to prepare to go track down the Atom robots with Jax and Stein. She has no idea where Sara and Leonard have gone to, presumably preparing for their own portion of the mission, but she's seen the cracks in them, too. Especially the thief, in his own way warring between pragmatism and the better angels of his nature, angels that had to bend a metaphor, been given a chance to flex their wings during their time in 1958.

The woman she'd been, even when first stepping onto the Waverider, would have scoffed at the idea of Leonard Snart, jewel thief and enemy of the Flash, having those better angels at all. She knows better, now.

Kendra thinks about Ray and Carter, about Aldus and the child she's carrying. The presence of Vandal Savage, there like a taint on the outside of her awareness, and Rip Hunter, trying so hard to save his own son that he's willing to kill someone else's.

Then she shakes it off, a little, thinks another moment, and then heads to the brig.

* * *

Mick grunts at Kendra's greeting but doesn't look her way when she walks into the brig. He's lying on his back, staring up at the ceiling, still wearing the same vaguely military outfit he'd had on when she'd first come back on board the ship, when he'd been unconscious and newly out of his Chronos armor.

"It's almost funny how you guys keep parading in here like it's some kind of confessional or something. You, Blondie, the kid, the professor, Hunter… Snart ain't been here in a while. Wuss," he snorts derisively.

Then he glances up.

The expression on his face might almost be amusing, in its sheer dumbfounded nature, if she didn't remember all too clearly what Chronos had been capable of. As it is, Kendra feels her lips twitch a little as she sits down, a bit heavily, on one of the benches.

"Whoa," he says finally, sounding more like Mick Rory than she'd really expected him to. "Damn. Haircut knocked you up." He pauses, eyeing her. "It  _was_ Haircut?"

The nickname also seems like a good sign. Perhaps Leonard really had been right, about what he'd asked them all to do. "Ray is the father, yes," Kendra confirms for him. "You know we spent some time in 1958. You were responsible for it, after all."

That brings the shutters down. No, she supposes, he wouldn't want to be reminded that his own actions had led to Leonard being unable to go back for him—had led to how his friend had been forced to leave him behind in the first place. Mick sits back and stares at her. But Kendra can wait. She's very good at it, after all this time.

The silence stretches. The former bounty hunter is finally the one to break it.

"Why're you here?" he asks a bit gruffly but sounding reasonably like the man she remembers from...before.

Kendra considers that for a moment. There are a few reasons, actually, and only one is because she's been asked to.

"Because there's been lots of talk on the ship—and off it, as far as it goes-about people changing," she says finally. "You told Leonard..."

That gets a snort. "Oh, it's 'Leonard' now, is it?" he says mockingly. "It's one thing with Blondie, but now you're all buddy-buddy too?"

Kendra ignores the mockery. She thinks that maybe she can see the hurt behind it. "You told him that the Time Masters made you live lifetimes," she continues, a bit flatly. "And it...affected you. You think maybe I don't know what that's like? That maybe I might have some insight into...coming back from it? You really think they had your best interests at heart?"

That brings all his self-righteous anger to a crashing halt. Mick stares at her, and Kendra raises her chin and stares back. She's not going to pretend that anyone else is the real bad guy here, she's long since decided. Savage is the true enemy, and she (and others on the ship) isn't so sure they can't lump the Time Masters in with him.

Mick can't seem to decide what to say to her about that. It hadn't, quite clearly, been at all what he was expecting. Finally, he glances away, frowning, then back at her.

"S'pose you do," he mutters then. "Doesn't change anything."

"No?" Kendra shifts a little. Her back never stops aching, these days, and these benches aren't comfortable at all. "I think you're not a true believer, when it comes to the Time Masters. You worked for them because you didn't have much choice." She pauses when he frowns, clearly about to argue. "And because you think you hate Leonard."

"I do." Mick's voice is flat, now, and there's a flash of anger there. But it's not at her, and there's no point in arguing with it.

"Is he really who you hate?" she asks instead, quietly.

Her former teammate opens his mouth to respond, but something stops him, some vestige, perhaps, of honesty. Or maybe he just doesn't want to argue either. Instead, he shakes his head roughly, leaning back against the wall, watching her.

"Why're you here?" he asks again, after a few minutes.

Kendra tilts her head at him, considering, trying to decide which reason to give him. "I just wanted to let you know that I hope you come back," she says. "Because I think we need you. The same reason we needed Leonard in 1958."

Mick snorts and mutters something, but Kendra holds up a hand, and there's enough command in the gesture that he actually stops, letting her speak.

"You can do what needs to be done," she tells him quietly. "And more than anything else, I want my next son to grow up without worrying about Savage."

Kendra can see the moment Mick remembers that he—that Chronos—had been the one responsible for Aldus's death. On the outside, it's just a blink, an expression, a flicker in his façade-but it rocks him, and she sees it. And that's the biggest sign of all that they've all been right, and there  _is_ something worth saving here.

It flickers through her head that she's very glad, for Leonard's sake especially.

Mick opens his mouth, and Kendra's not sure if he's going to try to apologize or explain or even justify it. She doesn't want to hear it.

"As Rip says, time wants to happen," she interrupts instead, "and Aldus was...he was going to die anyway, of a heart attack, in his office." She sighs. "At least that way, I got to see him again." Mick tries to speak again; she interrupts again. "And I don't think you and Chronos were as much the same being as you want us to believe."

Mick's chin jerks up. "I  _am_ Chronos!" he barks, but Kendra's pretty sure, really, that he's protesting too much.

"Are you?" she asks, stretching a little again. "Really? Then why didn't you-as-Chronos know better where we were going to be and what we were going to do? Why couldn't you have tracked us down at any time? You were  _there_."

"I..." Mick shakes his head. He looks like he's getting a headache. Kendra can sympathize. "I did..."

Kendra actually laughs.

"Mick," she says with a hit of amusement. "You hit yourself with a car. Remember?"

The man puts a hand to his head, closing his eyes. Kendra decides, then, that her work here is done, for now. She climbs to her feet, sighing as her back protests, and turns for the door.

Mick speaks up again, though, after she's taken a few steps.

"Son?"

He'd noticed her wording, after all. Kendra looks back at him, noting the lines of pain in his forehead and the stiff way he's sitting, there in the barren, uncomfortable brig.

"Yes. And now you know something that even Ray doesn't know, yet," she tells him. "Gideon let it slip earlier to me. I'm going to tell him later."

Mick stares at her, confusion and something more complicated in his gaze.

"Why the hell did you tell  _me_?" he asks.

"Consider it...a gesture. Because I still think we have the same enemy." She nods. "And although I know the old saying about the enemy of my enemy isn't always true-I do think we could still be friends."

* * *

Despite all the turmoil amidst the team members that the plans for Per Degaton have caused, the kidnapping itself goes off without a hitch. Even if Leonard and Sara hadn't been quite so used to working as a team at this point, they know their business, and Rip has the unconscious boy back in the medbay in no time.

Leonard vanishes again after they do, and Sara's still trying to decide whether to give him more space or go in search of him when Ray, Stein and Jax return as well, the former wide eyed and distracted by his own apparent further connection to the company making the Atom robots.

But before he can babble too much about his unborn child–or some other hypothetical child of his, for that matter—starting a company that manufactures "evil robots," Kendra calmly cuts in and asks Gideon about Dr. Brice's family line. The AI is inclined to be closemouthed about anything that involves their futures, but she admits that the scientist is related to Ray—to be precise, his brother's great-great-great-great granddaughter.

That sets Ray off on a new tangent, but at least it's one that doesn't involve his supposed failings as a father. Sara shakes her head and decides to visit the medbay instead.

However, there are no answers there. Just the simultaneously amusing and disturbing revelation that Gideon can watch their dreams—and the far more disturbing one that their great kidnapping caper made no difference to the future at all.


	3. It Just Seems You're on My Way

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Takes place during the latter half of "Progeny." Many thanks to LarielRomeniel for the beta and some excellent thoughts!

“What do you mean, it did nothing?” Stein’s voice rises in consternation at Hunter’s words. The professor looks around the holotable at the rest of them, clearly dismayed at the failure. Leonard, arms wrapped around himself in a manner that even he knows looks a bit defensive, figures the older man probably knows what this means for the more humane option of dealing with Per Degaton. They can all see it coming.

Frankly, he’s not much happier. But that doesn’t mean he’s going to let it show. He lets his gaze cross Sara’s, then glances away, uncomfortable.

“I mean that kidnapping Per Degaton had only a nominal effect upon the timeline,” Rip says, sounding both defensive and more than a bit resigned. He runs a hand through his hair, his usual harried manner exacerbated by the failure.

“Maybe we need to dump the little brat somewhere he can't get into any trouble, like the Stone Age,” Leonard offers, keeping his voice harsh. It seems a valid option.

Frankly, he’s been wondering why they couldn’t try to steal the Armageddon virus itself, have one of the nerd squad try to whip up an antidote. But when he’d mentioned that, everyone had stared at him like he was out of his mind…and then immediately seemed to forget about the idea. And that’s not a heist even he would try to pull without a lot of planning and backup.

But Gideon nixes his new thought right away, too. “No matter where and when you sequester him in the timeline, Savage will still rise to power,” she says promptly.

“And you couldn’t have told us that before we kidnapped him?” Sara sighs, lowering her head to her hands. But Leonard’s frowning again, something catching his attention, another little detail that doesn’t seem to fit.

“Why?” he asks sharply. “If the kid really is...what was the word...the springboard for Savage, why _wouldn’t_ dumping him somewhere else work?”

Rip blinks at him. Stein frowns, glancing at Jax, who nods. Sara lifts her head and eyes him, but it’s not the weary, concerned look she’s worn so much lately. It’s almost speculative.

“And if he’s not, if it won’t, what’s the point in killing him, either?” she says slowly, turning to look at Rip.

The captain blinks at them, as if that hadn’t occurred to him. Then he shakes his head roughly, looking perplexed and determined at the same time. Leonard has the thought, yet again, that something else is going on here.

“Yes, I also said that time wants to happen,” Hunter says then, quickly, “and such a world-changing event like Savage's rise to power can't be stopped merely by kidnapping his young pawn.”

“But gone is gone,” Stein says thoughtfully, catching on to what Leonard and Sara have been trying to say. “How would killing him work any more than removing him to some other time to live his life?”

Hunter straightens up, seeming almost annoyed that they’re questioning him. “Let us not forget that this boy will one day be responsible for billions of deaths,” he starts, “including…”

Leonard wants to retort that the captain seems to be missing the point, which seems rather curious to him, but to his further frustration, Jax cuts in before he can.

“I got a better idea,” the younger man says. “Instead of us arguing about whether we should kill him, or where and when to dump him off, why don't we just talk to him?”

Hunter breaks back in with more of his line—almost his…script?--about how Savage has been corrupting the kid and just how evil he’ll be in the future, but Leonard seizes on something else.

“If you can’t talk him into being one of the ‘good guys,’” he says abruptly, over the top of the other man. “Then focus on making him a different bad guy.”

Hunter stops dead again and blinks, but Sara hums thoughtfully. Leonard nods to her, warming to the idea.

“I might be trying to turn over a new leaf,” he says, looking at Stein, then Jax, “but I’m not stupid. Bribe the shit out of the little monster. Give him something he wants. That’s probably how Savage is getting to him, isn’t it?” Now he turns back to Hunter, spreading his hands out before him. “Giving him something he wants, even if it’s just, what, telling him he’s better and stronger than his father.”

He shrugs. “Kid dislikes his dear ol’ dad that much, that’s a powerful thing to hear.”

Martin’s nodding now. “Mr. Snart,” he says in his thoughtful manner, “that is...amazingly perceptive.”

Leonard rolls his eyes. “Aw, shucks, I’m blushing.” He crosses his arms again and leans back against the wall. “Sometimes the thing to do with two adversaries is to play them off against each other.”

“Like, say, the Flash and the Trickster?” Stein asks shrewdly, smiling when Leonard smirks at him. “And even then, maybe it’s not too late for Per Degaton to change.”

Hunter starts to speak again, but captain or not, he’s outnumbered.

* * *

“You again.” Mick’s voice is resigned as Sara saunters in the door of the brig again. She thinks that maybe he’s trying for a tone of disgust, but he doesn’t quite manage it.

“Me again.” She wanders over, closer to where he’s sitting, and perches on one of the benches. “How are you?”

That just gets a grunt. Sara waits a moment, then shrugs, leaning back.

“We’ve all been out there debating whether we should kill this kid, 'cause no one thinks he can change, which made me think of you,” she tells him thoughtfully.

Mick does look at her then, expression unreadable for a minute before he pastes a sardonic look better suited to Leonard on his face.

“No one thinks I can change?” he sneers. “Well, good…”

But Sara cuts him off. “No,” she corrects, “ _you_ don’t think you can change. That's why you're in here.”

 Mick blinks, then recovers. “Well, I don’t wanna change,” he informs her. “And the only reason I'm in here is if I get out, I'm gonna give Snart some payback he's not walking away from.”

Sara doesn’t try to argue with him this time. “You know, while you were busy selling us out to a homicidal time pirate, Leonard and I almost died,” she tells him conversationally. “He was thinking about you, told me about your partnership, your friendship. And I learned even more during our time in 1958. He’s your friend, a loyal one. You should know that.”

Mick’s sneer looks more uncomfortable than genuine at this point.

“Spent a lot of time together, did you?” he fires back. “You know Snart’s got issues, then. Hope you’re not expecting to get _too_ close. He doesn’t actually have any friends, let alone girlfriends or boyfriends.”

He’s so far off base this time that it actually makes Sara laugh. And while she knows she should probably keep this particular bit of personal information to herself, she can’t quite bring herself to do it.

“Leonard and I have been lovers for months, actually,” she says casually, grinning as he blinks again. “We worked through all that. I should thank you, really. You helped give us time to do that.” She gets to her feet, nodding to him. “I think what he wants most now is your friendship back. It means a lot to him.”

Mick continues to gape at her as she heads for the door, only finding his voice for one last attempt at a potshot before she leaves.

“Oh, killing a kid?” he calls. “Not very hero-like.”

Sara turns back, nods to him.

“And that’s what we pretty much decided,” she tells him, smiling. “Good to know you _do_ agree.”

* * *

“Soooo. Who’s the good cop?” Leonard paces toward the other end of the medbay and turns on his heel, facing Hunter again.

Per Degaton is still motionless, asleep in one of the chairs, and the captain keeps giving him little, tormented looks like he just can’t help himself. Leonard finds it…curious…that the man seems to be equating the death of this kid with the immediate restoration of his own son, even though he’d been able to explain to no one why he’s making that correlation despite Gideon’s own assertions.

It’s one of the reasons he’s declared his own willingness to be the other factor in this little play, much to the surprise of some of the others. One of the other reasons, of course, is that he knows he can play it well. Either role, if need be.

Hunter pulls his gaze away from the unconscious kid again, staring at Leonard as if he’s surprised to see him there. Then he runs another hand through his hair.

“I’d have thought, Mr. Snart,” he says, sounding rather snappish, “that that would be obvious.”

It’s meant as a hit. Leonard gives him a thin smile.

“Well, Rip,” he says, drawling the name, leaning back against a console and folding his arms, “you’ve been the one who’s been leaning toward killing our young psychopath there the most. I don’t think anything’s particularly obvious at the moment.” He tilts his head, seeing the words strike home, then allows: “And, if I’m being fair, I daresay it would be…difficult…for anyone to get past the connections you seem to be making here.”

Hunter’s gaze snaps back to the boy. “Your life in exchange for his,” he whispers, seemingly to Per Degaton, continuing to frustrate Leonard to no end.

“ _Why_?” he snaps in returns to the captain. “Why do you think so?”

But Hunter reaches out and runs a knife under the IV keeping the boy unconscious, cutting through it with a _snikt_ , and the kid’s eyes start to flicker open.

Leonard wanders over, watching, as the kid who will kill billions blinks up at them, his gaze flicking from Rip to Leonard and back again.

“Who are you?” he whispers.

Rip gives him a grim smile, glancing at Leonard. “That's an excellent question.”

* * *

“The medbay is locked down, Ms. Lance.” Gideon’s voice betrays a certain unease that seems unlikely for an AI, but there it is. “Captain Hunter and Mr. Snart have woken Per Degaton. I shall not, as requested, interrupt, nor undo the lockdown unless both of them agree to do so.”

“Thank you, Gideon.” Sara leans back against the holotable and sighs, then glances at Stein. The older man has a somewhat distracted expression on his face, but he gives her a small and melancholy smile, and Sara returns it. Ray and Kendra are having an earnest conversation about Ray’s great-whatever niece over by Rip’s office, and Jax is fussing over one of the ship’s monitors at the other end of the bridge.

“Penny for your thoughts?” she asks after another moment.

“Hmm?” Stein blinks, seeming to come back to himself. “Ah. They’re not so valuable, I’m afraid. I am simply considering the nature of good and evil, and other such relative things.”

Sara eyes him. “Heavy stuff,” she returns. “And…relative?”

“More than I once would have believed.” Stein makes a thoughtful noise. “You know, I’m from Central City.” He glances at her. “Even if I hadn’t been associated with the Flash and his team, I would have known who Leonard Snart was before this mission. He has…a bit of a reputation.”

Sara isn’t sure whether to look serious or laugh. “Ah?” she manages. “I’m sure he’d be pleased to hear that.”

Stein gives her another small smile. “I’m sure. He is nothing if not pleased to meet a fan, is Mr. Snart. But,” he continues, “I will admit I had certain…expectations and preconceptions. For one such as him.”

Sara lifts an eyebrow at him, catching the negative air to the phrasing. Stein continues, though, seemingly lost in thought.

“I knew Mr. Snart was considered among the most talented of Central’s criminal element,” he says slowly. “But I thought he would be…well…” He darts a glance at her. “…stupid.”

That doesn’t even deserve a response. Sara gazes at him steadily. Stein tilts his head at her with a wry smile. “Obviously,” he murmurs, “I was extremely off base there. But I will admit the general academic’s bias for, well, academics. Mr. Snart is obviously, in actuality, a rather brilliant man.”

Sara smiles too, looking toward the medbay.

“He has a GED,” she murmurs. “It’s not a thing he advertises. But it meant something to him. And he’s taken a lot of online classes. Maybe enough to have more degrees at this point…if he’d done the homework, anyway.”

“Mmm. I’m not surprised.” Stein follows her gaze. “However, to my surprise, I also found he has his own sense of honor and no small sense of responsibility to anyone he considers ‘his.’” He nods. ”You’ve told me, a little, about his actions in 1958, as have Dr. Palmer and Ms. Saunders. He might have been a very different man, if not for…circumstances.”

Sara eyes him. “I like him the way he is.”

“Yes, well.” Stein inclines his head thoughtfully. “He would certainly not be…himself…if the events that shaped him were different. Is that not true for each of us? Including you, Ms. Lance.”

“Very true,” Sara allows, thinking of the Gambit and so many other things. “But…good and evil?”

“Yes, well, once I probably would have told you, without hesitation, that Leonard Snart, world-class jewel thief turned cold-gun-wielding supervillain, was, without question, evil.” He sighs. “Not so simple, is it?”

Sara Lance, former assassin and vigilante, smiles back at him. “No. Almost never.”

“Indeed.” Stein shakes his head. “And Mr. Rory. An arsonist. And a bounty hunter. And, still, a member of our team who saved Dr. Palmer’s life in Russia.” He glances at her. “And meanwhile, well, Captain Hunter, who recruited us to ‘be legends,’ who is on a mission that is as pure as one would consider possible, to save his wife and child and the world itself…he’s willing to…”

“Kill a child?” Sara gazes steadily at him. “Professor…you’re familiar with the idea of ‘the needs of the many outweighing the needs of the few?’”

“Of course.” Stein smiles at her a little. “Or the one. A Trekkie, Ms. Lance?”

“Well, Leonard is.” She nods as he laughs. “I suspect that idea plays into it, with the Time Masters. I think they play the long game.”

“Hmmmm.” For a moment, they both consider their own private suppositions there. Then Stein nods again.

“I understand, really. To Captain Hunter, this isn't about a killing,” he continues. “It's about saving.”

Sara tilts her head at him, waiting.

“His son's life for Per Degaton's,” Stein continues after a moment. “Rather simple if cold-blooded calculus for a father to undertake.”

Sara sighs. “But…it doesn’t seem that simple.”

“No. It doesn’t, does it?”

* * *

Per Degaton might be just a kid. But Leonard does take an instant dislike to him from the moment he opens his mouth.

“Do you know who I am?” the boy says, a bit shrilly, arrogant despite the fact that he’s still strapped into a chair in the medbay. “My father is going to...”

Leonard and Rip exchange a glance that holds, for once, perfect commiseration. Nothing good, Leonard thinks, has ever started with those six words.

“Your father doesn’t know where you are, kid,” he drawls, pulling up a chair, turning it around and taking a seat. “But by all means. Keep talking about him instead of standing on your own two feet.” He eyes the kid’s position. “So to speak.”

The boy’s eyes narrow. There’s something calculating and cold there, despite his young age, chilling even to a man who’d based a persona around being calculating and cold.

“What do you mean?” Per Degaton says, suspicion—but also curiosity—laced through his tone.

“I think,” Rip says carefully, leaning against a console nearby, “that my...colleague...is suggesting that immediately calling for your father—or, hmm, other so-called role models in your life--isn't quite the behavior of a strong leader.” He shrugs. “Perhaps we were wrong. Perhaps there _is_ nothing of the future lord of the conglomerate in you. The one we’d hoped to deal with.”

Leonard flicks the other man a glance of rare respect. Despite Rip’s odd fixation on the notion that killing Per Degaton will save his own son, he’s handling their plan here pretty well.

The kid’s chin has gone up, now, and he looks a mix of angry and upset.

“I will be a strong leader,” he insists. “Stronger by far than my father. What is it you want? You can deal with me! I am the future of Kasnia. He is the past!”

Rip and Leonard trade another look, one of skepticism, then shrug in unison.

“The Armageddon virus,” Rip says tersely, looking at the boy. “When you do come to power. Don’t release it.” He takes a step forward. “There are other ways to handle the...situation...outside. Ones that take more courage and intelligence than mere slaughter.”

Per Degaton stares at him...and then laughs.

“That’s what my father says,” he sneers. “But Vandal says the herd needs to be thinned. It’s why _he_ was smart enough to suggest the virus to our scientists. ” Out of the corner of his eye, Leonard sees Rip freeze at the echo of Savage’s earlier words. “Are you also so weak and stupid that you do not understand that?”

Oh, enough of this. Had he been as annoying as this little shit when he was 14? Leonard stands, abruptly, and sees Per Degaton recoil as much as the chair will let him. The sight makes him sick, but he’s not planning violence.

“That’s not strength, kid,” he drawls, layering scorn in his tone. “And it’s not leadership. That’s just using fear because you’ve got nothing better.” He stops, looming over the boy. “It’s a cop-out.”

Per Degaton’s brow furrows, as though he’s surprised at the response, though he’s obviously trying to retain his high-and-mighty attitude.

“Fear _is_ strength,” he insists. “Vandal says...”

But Leonard interrupts him with an eyeroll.

“Oh, come on,” he sighs, folding his arms. “Savage is using you.” He tilts his head toward the boy, looking weary. “You can’t even tell that? Seriously?”

Per Degaton gapes at him, then seems to realize he’s doing so, closing his mouth and narrowing his eyes again.

“You’re trying to use me too,” he says suspiciously, looking back and forth between them.

Leonard smirks at him. “Ah, yes, but we’re not trying to hide it.”

Rip steps up then, sighing. “Enough.” He points at Per Degaton. “You know our request. Your response?”

The kid tries to look crafty. Instead, Leonard thinks, he just looks bratty and a bit constipated. “What will you give me?”

“What do you want?” Rip returns.

The response chills Leonard even more. Per actually smiles.

“I want my father out of the way,” he says. “Now. Not later. You say you want to deal with the leader of Kasnia. Make me the leader of Kasnia. I don’t want to wait.”

Well, that’d gone downhill quickly.

Leonard’s not nearly as surprised as Rip seems to be—he'd spent years wanting Lewis gone, after all. He’s about to ask the kid if simply removing his father to another place, rather than removing him from the land of the living, would be adequate when Rip takes another step forward.

It only takes a glance for Leonard to realize that the captain’s back to his focus on a life for a life. Rip Hunter has his gun drawn, and he’s pointing it at the boy.

“Rip...” Leonard grits out, trying to figure out if he can step in in time.

But then Per Degaton does something else unexpected. He studies Rip a moment, eyes wide...and then he laughs.

“And if I don’t do what you want? Will you kill me?” He smirks. “You're not going to kill me.”

“I have to...I have to,” Rip murmurs, ignoring Leonard as he sidles closer. “I don't expect you to understand.”

“It doesn't matter if I understand,” the kid taunts him. “I can see it in your eyes. You're not going to do it.” He sniffs. “You're like my father, weak. Vandal Savage has taught me many things, including what a killer looks like. You're not a killer.”

Enough. Leonard reaches out and takes Rip’s gun from the man’s grasp, turning it around with a sigh to offer the hilt back to the surprised captain and trusting that the interruption will jar the man’s train of thought. Then he whirls, stepping closer to the chair, leaning forward to put his hands on the chair arms on either side of the surprised boy.

“What about me?” he says quietly, so quietly, meeting Per Degaton’s eyes and letting the cold seep out. “Am _I_ a killer?”

The boy stares, all his attitude and smirky bravado drained away. It’s satisfying, in a way, or it would be if Leonard was a bit more comfortable with the rising fear in the kid’s eyes.

“I don’t know,” he admits after a long moment.

Leonard gives him a tiny, humorless smile. “Hmm.” He lets the thoughtful noise hang in the air a moment, then straightens and nods, taking a step back.

“We have to discuss your request,” he says, looking at Rip, who’s still looking a bit taken aback by the turn things have taken. “But just so I’m clear. We...depose...your father, you refrain from succumbing to your genocidal impulses. Yes?” He pauses, as if struck by another thought. “And kid? You need to get rid of Vandal Savage too. He’s not your buddy.”

Per Degaton's lip juts out in a pout that makes him look even more sullen and annoying.

“Vandal loves me,” he insists.

Leonard snorts and Rip shakes his head.

“Oh, he wants to use you as his pawn,” he tells the boy, looking at his gun as if confused by its presence in his hand and then holstering it, “and ultimately, he will betray you.”

“No. No, he..."

But the ship shakes then, a startling impact that has both men reaching out to steady themselves and Rip raising his voice immediately. “Gideon?”

“Tor Degaton's forces have surrounded the ship,” the AI reports. “The others have engaged them.”

“And you didn’t tell us this before?” Leonard growls as the ship rocks again.

“You asked not to be disturbed. And...” Gideon sounds a bit annoyed, though not necessarily at them. “...I’ve been able to mitigate the impacts before now. Dr. Palmer is working on getting those annoying robots shut down. With luck, it will be soon.”

The two men exchange glances as Per Degaton looks back and forth between them. The brat looks all too happy that his hated father has come for him now.

“Can you let us hear what’s going on out there?” Rip asks.

The sounds of battle flood the room, although there’s not so much to be identified from them. Leonard’s fingers flex with the need to grab his cold gun and run out to help, to watch Sara’s back, to fight with the others, but he stays put.

Until...

“Looks like Ray was able to sabotage the robot army!”

“Which means mopping up the rest of these guys shouldn't be a problem.”

And an unpleasant, familiar, unwelcome voice: “Oh, it will be a problem.”

“Sara!”

_Sara_?

“Gideon!” Leonard shouts, spinning, a surge of adrenaline and terror in his bones, knowing the AI will know what he’s asking.

A tiny pause. “Vandal Savage has Ms. Lance,” she tells him. “He...”

But Leonard’s at the door already, hammering his fist against it before Rip can raise his own voice to order “Gideon, let him out!”

The door slides open. Leonard barely remembers his headlong dash down the corridors to the hatch, barely remembers jumping down and tearing toward the others, as they watch the figures standing not so far from the ship. His gun is primed and aimed at Vandal Savage, but the warlord has a knife to Sara’s throat, and...

And in that moment, he sympathizes with Rip more than ever before, can’t even manage a wisp of concern that he’d left the other man alone in the ship with the boy he wants to kill, because he’d knows, then, that he’d throw away anything, do anything, to save Sara, to save the woman he loves. He’d tear the world apart with his bare hands, he’d...

“What do you want?” he growls, warring against the terror that’s holding him frozen in place.

Savage gives them an oily grin. Sara rolls her eyes, her mouth set in a straight line, and Leonard can see just how pissed off she is, at the warlord and probably at herself, for letting herself get captured.

“I want to exchange this woman's life for your captain, Rip Hunter,” the man oozes.

It’s probably just as well that Leonard only has a moment to consider that (and he never does quite figure out how he would have responded). Because nearly immediately, the captain’s voice echoes from behind him, from near the ship, in response.

“I have a better idea: her life in exchange for his,” Hunter shouts, clearly addressing Tor Degaton rather than Savage. ““Your son will be returned to you as soon as you guarantee our safe passage.”

Per Degaton himself is actually silent in that moment, somewhat to Leonard’s surprise. He sees a flash of something in Savage’s eyes, something of surprise and perhaps anger, there and gone so quickly it’s hard to analyze.

“No,” the warlord says, raising his voice. “We should kill them all. If you don’t, they will only come back for you.”

There’s a long few minutes of silence. Then Tor Degaton steps forward, snatching the knife from Savage, who still shifts his arm to rest around Sara’s throat.

“Put down your weapons!” Degaton’s voice echoes throughout the field. “Let my son go, and I will let you leave in peace. You have my word.”

And out of the corner of his eye, Leonard see Rip let Per Degaton go. The boy shakes himself, as if settling ruffled feathers, then walks toward his father, still quiet. He glances at Leonard as he passes. The look is opaque.

“Better find yourself a new mentor, kid,” Leonard tells him, and something flickers in the boy’s eyes.

At first, Leonard’s afraid Savage isn’t going to let Sara go. But he does, pulling his arm away, and while Leonard tries to show no sign, the sudden ebb of the terror that’s been gripping him actually makes his knees weak for a moment.

Sara doesn’t have any such issue. She turns around as Savage releases her, leans forward and stares right at him, a gaze that would make another man wilt, then turns and walks away, back toward the Legends. She moves right past Leonard and others and up into the hatch of the ship, and after a second, they turn and follow her.

* * *

Sara’s waiting for him in the corridor, just out of sight of the hatch. Leonard moves toward her unhesitatingly, stopping for just a moment to regard her as she sighs and regards him in return. Then he moves closer, reaching for her, wrapping an arm around his assassin, pulling her close, bringing a hand up to cup her jaw as they kiss.

It’s hardly a secret that they’d hooked up in 1958, but it’s the first real PDA that Stein, Jax and Hunter have seen between the two of them. Distantly, he hears Rip sigh, hears Jax laugh and Stein chuckle softly. He and Sara ignore them all.

When they break for air, Leonard can’t resist holding her close just a moment longer. “If he’d hurt you,” he says quietly, “I’d have frozen him solid, no matter what it took, shattered him and scattered the pieces. Maybe to all the world’s finest cesspools. Someplace pleasant.”

Sara chuckles, leaning against his shoulder for just a moment longer, both of them drawing strength from the other.

“Well,” she says, “here’s hoping you get the chance, sometime, _without_ me or anyone else getting hurt.” She sighs, then pulls away, starting to head toward the bridge. “I’m not even sure what happened there. One moment I was fighting, then...he had me.”

The ship takes off even as they walk, but Hunter’s apparently not planning a jump just yet. He’s pouring over the readouts on the bridge as Gideon handles the piloting and the team gathers, and while he doesn’t look very happy, neither does he look upset. Rather...perplexed.

“Did we have any impact on the future?” Jax asks, glancing at the images on the holotable. “Any at all? I mean, I don’t know what you two said to the kid, but he was obviously still alive.”

Rip shakes his head. “I’m trying...Gideon?”

The AI pauses long enough for everyone to frown, and when she speaks, it’s slowly—what might be thoughtfully in a human being.

“The Armageddon virus still gets released,” she says, and Rip’s shoulders slump. “But...it is later than before. About two years, until Per Degaton dies, now at age 21.”

She continues as the team members look around at each other. “Per Degaton, apparently, isn’t impressed with his father’s handling of things in this...incident...but neither does he trust Savage quite so much after this. He starts working against them both. Building a base of his own.”

“That little shit,” Leonard says almost admiringly, shaking his head. “Well, well, well.”

Rip looks stunned, continuing to read the information he’s finding. He shakes his head after a moment. “Savage has to deal with that before he can carry other plans out,” he observes. “His rise is delayed, just a little. I don’t...I don’t know how that’s going to affect things. I don’t think it can be a bad thing.” He looks up. “That...was a good idea, Mr. Snart. I was blinded by my feelings about the matter.”

Leonard smirks at him, but he knows the expression has an edge of understanding to it. Because he does. He understands.

“Well, I could do without the air of surprise, but I’ll take it,” he drawls, squeezing Sara’s hand and then looking it go. For the moment. “And now, I have something to deal with myself. Gideon?

“Yes, Mr. Snart. I think it’s time.”

* * *

“What do _you_ want?”

It’s not like Leonard hasn’t been in the brig before, but it’s been a while since Mick’s earlier explosion at him. He pauses in the doorway, then sighs, finishing his stroll into the room.

“People seem to think we should have a heart to heart,” he drawls, leaning against the doorway to the cell.

Mick snorts at him. “We don’t have hearts. Where does that leave us?”

Leonard ignores the question, though, focusing on the first part of the comment. “Don’t we?” he muses, eyeing Mick. “Then why were you so pissed off when I picked the team—after you went and betrayed them?” He pauses, then acknowledges: “Betrayed us?”

Mick looks vaguely appalled at the words. And speechless. He gapes at Leonard, who watches him steadily.

Finally, the bigger man shakes his head. “You…Snart.” A pause. “I don’ know what the fuck is going on.”

Those nine words are the most unashamedly Mick words Leonard has heard out of Chronos. His shoulders relax a little, almost against his will, and he sighs. “You said,” he muses, watching his partner, “that I wanted to play hero.”

Mick watches him warily in return. “Yeah?”

Leonard takes another deep breath and thinks about everything he’s done, since…since Lewis. About Barry and Sara and the Waverider and 1958. Even about Per Degaton.

“Yes,” he admits.

Mick blinks. “Yes what?” he asks in an odd, stunned tone.

“Yes.” Leonard watches him steadily. “I wanted to be a hero.” He continues as Mick stares. “You knew me as that…what was the wording...’punk kid,’ in 1986, in juvie.” He stares at the other man. “I didn’t think I could ever be more, so I decided to be the best goddamned crook I could be. And I was.”

Len takes a step, pacing toward the wall. “And then...” Another step, and he turns on his heel. “...and then I killed Lewis. And you weren’t there for all that, Mick, you ran, you took the take and left Lisa and me...”

The other man starts to speak, but Leonard holds up a hand, stopping him. “And I’m not blaming you for that.” He sighs and takes another step. “Not really. But don’t pretend like this has always been a steadfast partnership, all for one, one for all, yadda yadda, when we’ve both fucked up and left each other behind before.”

Mick’s climbed to his feet, though he hasn’t made a move toward the door. “I didn’t know Lewis...”

“Yeah, you didn’t know he’d gotten twisted enough to put a bomb in my sister’s neck to force me to work with him. Why would you?” Leonard stops right in the front of the cell again and shrugs, then gazes levelly at Mick. “And I didn’t know the Time Masters were going to grab you and pretty much make sure I could never come back to fix things.”

Mick stares back a long moment. “It’s not the same,” he says eventually, quietly.

“No?” Leonard shrugs again and decides to leave it. “Anyway. After Lewis. I started thinking.” He turns again, paces away, one step, two. “What if all I’d done was become a different version of my asshole father? A better crook, yeah. But still a crook.” At the other wall. He turns on his heel again, facing Mick. “Still someone who could…who could die tomorrow, with no one giving much of a rat's ass.”

Another step. “Just.” Another. “Like.” A third. “Lewis.”

Now they’re facing each other again, and Mick’s moved forward to be right on the other side of the reinforced glass that makes up the brig. The two men stare at each other before Mick shakes his head again, roughly.

“You’re fuckin’ kidding me,” he says, but there’s more confusion and disbelief in his tone than anger.

Leonard ignores that and continues on with what he’d come to say. “You were right,” he acknowledges again. “I came on this mission not to steal—not just to steal—but to see what else I could be. Rip said, a Legend.” He pauses. “And then Sara asked why we couldn’t change our own fates. It...touched a nerve.”

Mick snorts, but Leonard carries on. “And then I spent nearly a year in 1958, with the cleanest slate I’d had since 1986, and I…”

Too much to say. And he may be giving Mick a piece of his soul, here, but he’s not quite willing to give up too much information about that time.

“I became a better man,” he finishes quietly. “Not perfect.” He thinks about Per Degaton again. “But not...not Lewis, either.”

Mick stares back, and then, without breaking his gaze, takes a step back. And another and another until he reaches the far wall again and slowly slides down it, coming to rest on the floor.

“So that’s it, then,” he says abruptly. “You’re a hero. Big fucking deal.” He shrugs, a sharp and angry gesture. “Nothin’ left for me.”

The words smart, but they’re also uncharacteristically revealing. Leonard studies him, seeing the hurt that’s there, too, the same type of hurt he’d felt when Mick had shown up with the time pirates, when he’d seen his friend fire the heat gun at Sara.

“Why not?” he asks quietly. “Why not you, too?”

Mick’s eyes narrow. “Why the hell would I want to?” But there’s not as much anger there as there once might have been, and a real question underneath it, and Leonard takes heart from that.

“Because you’re not what your old man told you you were, either,” he says simply, folding his arms. “Or what Rip said. Hell, if the Time Masters did anything right, they recognized that…potential.”

Somewhat to his surprise, Mick doesn’t immediately shoot the comment down. In fact, the silence grows as the two old friends stare at each other, angry actions and long years between them, a long stretch for words to try to bridge.

“You do realize how fuckin’ bizarre this all sounds?” Mick says finally, climbing back to his feet slowly. “The coldest sonovabitch I ever knew, and you’re all ‘be a hero, Mick.’”

Leonard lifts a shoulder in a sort of shrug. He’s out of words for the moment, he thinks wearily. Unloading the ones he’d already delivered had taken going against a lifetime of playing his cards close to his chest.

The next move is Mick’s.

The other man doesn’t seem to be in a hurry to make it. He crosses to stand right near the glass again, studying Leonard in a rather unMicklike way: calm and almost thoughtful. Leonard stands, hipshot, and endures the scrutiny. He figures it’s the least he can do.

Finally, Mick nods and meets Leonard’s eyes again.

“So,” he says carefully, “you’re saying it wasn’t Blondie.”

Len blinks in surprise, then considers the path of the conversation.

Well,” he admits after a moment. “Not _just_.” He shakes his head. “She was an _assassin_ , Mick. She killed a lot more people than you or I ever did. And she’s...she’s become more. Despite that. If she can come back…”

Mick stares again and gives a faint huff of amusement.

“I can’t decide if you’re utterly nuts or if someone kidnapped the Snart I knew and replaced you with this Bizarro version,” he comments, folding his arms and sounding vaguely amused.

Leonard can’t decide if that’s good or not. He lifts his chin and eyes the other man.

“I’m not goin’ all sweetness and light,” he retorts stiffly. “Or soft. I fully intend to keep giving ol’ Rip as much shit as possible, and if I can steal anything cool or valuable, I’m sure as hell going to do it.”

He shrugs, then. “But I want Savage to go down, and now, whether or not Rip realizes it, I’m taking the Time Masters down too.”

Mick eyes him in return. “Why?” he asks with a faint tone of surprise in his voice.

Leonard snorts. He lets his eyes travel around the brig, then looks Mick dead in the eye. “You seriously have to ask that?” he asks, thinking of the years of torment his friend had described. “You really can’t figure that out?”

Mick gapes at him, but something in Len’s voice gets through. The bigger man shakes his head roughly, taking a step back, seeming uncomfortable with the path and the tone the conversation has taken. And Leonard gets that, he really does, but right here and now he can’t take the time to take his time.

Sometimes you just gotta roll the hard six.

“I meant to go back, Mick. Once you’d cooled down, once I could figure out a way, I always meant to go back. Whether you believe it or not.” Taking a deep breath, then, Leonard pulls the cold gun out of its holster at his side and primes it, the blaze of blue light and the familiar whirr of noise. Mick’s face is startled, shadowed in the eerie illumination, but he doesn’t say anything, or even step back farther.

“I’m not dying today, Mick. I’ve got too much to do,” Leonard tells him quietly, just loudly enough to be heard over the gun. “And I’m not letting you free to hurt anyone else on this ship. But...”

And then he reaches up and slaps the panel for the brig. And the door slides open. Mick blinks...but doesn’t move. Leonard takes a step back.

“I’m betting that there’s enough of the Mick I think I know that if I let you go with a clean slate of your own, you’ll just take it and leave,” he tells the other man. “It’s the least I can do for you. I never meant for things to work out the way they did.”

Then he takes a deep breath. “But, if you want to stay, I can only promise you that I...we...will find a way to take the Time Masters down. Together.”

Mick looks at the open door. Then at the cold gun, in its defensive position. Then, finally, at Leonard.

“We?” he says.

There’s a lot in the one-word question. Leonard nods, acknowledging that.

“Me. You,” he says quietly. “Sara. The team.”

Mick’s still motionless. “Hunter might have something to say about that.”

“You let me handle...” Leonard’s voice trails off. Then he nods, another acknowledgement, of a few different things. “Even Hunter’s not stupid.” He smirks a little as Mick snorts. “And there’s something going on here, more than it seems,” he adds, then pauses.

The silence stretches.

“Help me figure out what it is,” Leonard finishes. “Please.”

Mick stares. And then he nods and takes one step. Then another. And another, out of the brig and back onto the ship at large.

And then he aims one perfect right hook, precisely judged so that it doesn’t even fully knock Leonard over or make him drop the cold gun, right at his friend’s jaw.

Leonard, who’d seen it coming, takes the hit without even trying to block it. The blow rocks him, and he can feel the bruise forming even as he shakes his head roughly, trying to clear his head.

“I deserved that,” he rasps, opening his eyes to focus on Mick, who’s shaking his fingers loose and looking slightly smug.

“Yeah, well, don’t ever hit me again.” The bigger man makes a noise between a snort and a sigh. “They’re not going to be happy you let me out.”

“You might be surprised about that.” Leonard glances upward. “Gideon?”

The AI actually sighs. “Mr. Snart. I’m glad this...mad scheme...worked out as you’d hoped.”

She pauses. “And welcome back, Mr. Rory. You may know this already, to some extent, but watching your brain waves regulate themselves over the course of the past week or so has proven quite fascinating. Every time someone from the team spoke to you and reminded you more of...who you truly are...they became a little clearer. Until Mr. Snart and I judged it worthwhile to take this chance.”

Mick grunts in surprise, then eyes Leonard, who can’t resist a smirk. “You should know I always have a plan,” he reminds the other man, even as he rubs his aching jaw.

“Bastard,” Mick tells him, but there’s no real anger in the epithet. In fact, Leonard thinks, there might even be a sort of amused admiration.

“Never claimed otherwise.” Leonard loosens his grip on the gun and holsters it smoothly, then waves a hand toward the exit in clear invitation. The two men fall into step without words, almost by instinct, and Leonard feels something he didn’t even know was tense relax for the first time in more than a week.

If he was just a touch more sentimental, he might even say it was in the vicinity of his heart.

They have a lot to talk about, but there’s still one thing that’s on Leonard’s mind more than anything else, and he doesn’t waste time before bringing it up again.

“Why were you so sure that I’d be on the ship?” he asks Mick after a moment, as they head toward the bridge. “Back in 1958, after the Harmony Falls debacle.”

His friend eyes him, then shrugs. “Time Masters said you would be,” he says gruffly. “Swore it.”

Leonard turns that over. “And how would they know?”

“They…I dunno.” Mick hesitates, pausing there in the corridor. “But they’d say stuff and…it would happen. When they were _that_ sure, it always happened.” He meets Leonard’s eyes. “ _Always_.”

Leonard holds the gaze a moment, then nods. “So, do they just know, because of the same records Gideon has access to,” he muses, starting to walk again. “Or are they…do they…?

The words hang in the air. Leonard isn’t quite sure how to finish the question. The idea seems just too out there, even given time travel and reincarnation and metahumans and everything else he’s learned about in the past few years.

Mick, though, doesn’t move. And after only a second, Leonard stops and looks back at him.

“I dunno,” his friend says seriously. “But it doesn’t matter anyway. I wanna take down the Time Bastards, Snart. But...we’re in big trouble. All of us.”

Leonard frowns. “What do you mean?”

“When I don’t bring you in or take you—the team--down this time, the Time Masters won’t take any chances,” Mick frowns, and Leonard can see the concern on his face. “They’ll send the Hunters.”

Hunters? Leonard pauses, but his brain fixes on another part of the sentence.

“ _This_ time?” he asks thoughtfully. “What changed? From what Hunter said, you’ve been chasing him a long time, long before there was a team to take down. Do they know we ‘captured’ you? Why was that your last chance? Why now?”

Mick eyes him, obviously a little confused by his friend’s focus on what probably seems to be the wrong detail in that statement. Leonard shakes his head.

“Never mind,” he says, turning away. “Let’s go tell the others it’s time to fight.”

“It’s not, Snart. It’s time to run.”


	4. All the Rules of Logic Don't Apply

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Takes place during the first half, more or less, of "The Magnificent Eight." Many thanks to LarielRomeniel for the beta and great suggestions!
> 
> Yes, the chapter count went up quite a bit. It seems likely it will be two chapters for every episode. Hope you enjoy!

Rip doesn’t warn them about just how long their next time jump is going to be—or about the increased side effects. That’s irritating…but that irritation is quickly swept away as Kendra gasps right after the jump, hands going to her abdomen as Rip brings the Waverider down to land.

“Ow,” she says, closing her eyes. “Ray…Rip, this hurts. I…oh!”

Whatever the others’ own side effects, they’re swept away in concern for their teammate. Ray, who’s sitting right next to his wife, falls over his own feet as he rises, immediately getting back up to his knees to reach for her.

“You said it was safe to time jump when pregnant!” he yells at Rip, sounding more pissed off than Sara’s ever heard him before. She shakes her head, trying to get rid of the vestige of dizziness and nausea, and glances at Leonard, who looks relatively unfazed—at least by the jump.

“It is! Even longer jumps.” Rip hurries over to them. “Gideon?”

“From what I can tell from here, Ms. Saunders’ life signs—and those of the baby—are perfectly within normal range,” the AI says after a moment. “I can do a few more checks in the medbay. But there seems to be no reason to worry.”

Ray sighs in relief, and he’s not the only one. Rip looks nearly as relieved as the parents-to-be, leaning against the jump seat and rubbing his eyes.

“Perhaps it is just that Ms. Saunders is, after all, nearly at term. I remember…” He stops what he’s about to say, abruptly, and looks ill. Sara can’t help feeling a bit sympathetic, given that he’s almost certainly thinking about his wife and their son, but she’s more worried about her pregnant friend.

She rises nearly in unison with Leonard, who’s actually remarkably gentle as he reaches out and pulls the unsteady Ray to his feet. Kendra’s biting her lip as Sara touches her arm, but she gives the other woman a wry smile.

“Contraction, I think,” she says. “Rip might be right. I almost remember…it doesn’t have to be active labor…”

Sara’s not sure what to do with that. “Um,” she says. “Well. Even if it’s normal, that doesn’t mean you want to have the baby right now, right?”

“True.” Kendra gasps again. “Damnit,” she murmurs after a long breath. “After all this time, why don’t we have a better way to deal with this?”

“I’d do it if I could,” Ray tells her in distress, reaching out to help her up, Leonard offering an arm on the other side until she’s sure she’s steady.

“Medbay to her get,” he says, then turns and glares at Rip, who gives him an apologetic shrug.

“Linguistic dysplasia; that should pass shortly,” the captain offers.

“Better hell as sure it,” Leonard mutters, and Sara has to stifle a laugh at his surly tone.

As the initial worry about their teammate subsides with Gideon’s reassurance, concern about the time-jump symptoms becomes more audible.

“I can’t feel my face,” Jax says, turning from side to side, hands tracing his jaw. “Am I the only one who can't feel their face?”

“I can't feel my...” Ray lets his voice trail off as they start for the medbay, glancing at Kendra, who’s feeling better enough to roll her eyes at him. “I better not say.”

“Mr. Rory appears unaffected,” Stein comments, eyeing Mick…who apparently to be asleep.

At that comment, though, the former bounty hunter opens an eye. “What's going on? We time jump?”

“Yeah, we time jumped,” Sara says with some amusement, turning back. “But ‘where to?’ is the better question.”

Rip lets out an almost wistful sigh, turning around. “The town of Salvation,” he says, “the Dakota territory, 1871.”

Ray stops dead in his tracks, looking over his shoulder. “I can't believe it...” he breathes. “The Old West.”

“Ray, I swear…”

“Right! Medbay! On the way!”

* * *

“Kendra’s fine. And so is the baby.” Raymond’s voice holds so much relief and happiness that even Leonard, experienced cynic and hardened thief (or so he tells himself), can’t help but smile. He hears Sara’s sigh of relief from where she’s leaning next to him, feels the relaxation in the shoulder that’s brushing his, and gives her a sideways smile. They’d all pretty much known, thanks to Gideon, but it’s good to hear.

“You were right,” the father-to-be tells Hunter, who again looks almost as relieved as he does. “It was just a few, err, ‘practice’ contractions, so to speak. Gideon says maybe it’s best if she rests a bit.” He shakes his head. “She’s not real happy about that. And I feel bad. She’s going to have to miss the Old West.”

Rip starts to respond, but Mick cuts in then. The team’s accepted him back without much of a ripple, much to Leonard’s surprise and pleasure, but Mick seems a little discomfited by that. Not enough to go back in the brig, of course, but enough that he’s mostly kept quiet and to himself since his first warning about the Hunters.

“This isn't going to work,” he tells the captain flatly.

“It'll buy us time,” Rip returns, leaning against the table. “We can hide out here while the Hunters search the other Fragmentations.”

Mick crosses his arms and glowers. “What if they decide to check this place first?”

“Fragmentations?” Leonard asks sharply, while Stein makes a somewhat sardonic comment about communication and Raymond wanders over to join them.

The captain and Mick--sounding enough like Rip himself with the timey-wimey jargon that Leonard shakes his head in bemusement—explain the notion of the temporal blind spots, “specific places and times the Time Masters can't see,” a thought that Leonard files away to examine later for potential usefulness.

“So, basically,” he drawls, rising from his seat and facing Mick, “we're hiding out in the Old West and hoping your boogeymen don't find us here.”

Mick frowns at him. They’re on better terms than Leonard would have thought possible during most of the stint in 2147, but…things are different now.

“The Hunters are not boogeymen,” he says shortly. “And you better hope they don't find us.”

Raymond is babbling something about Westerns in the background, but Leonard’s more focused on Mick as they face each other down. They’re both different now too, Leonard thinks almost wistfully as they study each other. There’s an edge of seriousness to Mick that he’s rarely seen before, and the man who’s always been the brawn of their little operation—and actively avoided any possible part of being the brains—is rattling off Time Master rigamarole like Hunter himself.

And Leonard himself…well. He’s knows he’s gone what he once would have considered soft. He’s made his peace with that, with caring, for the team and for Sara and those left behind in 1958.

And for Mick.

Mick’s studying Leonard in return, a frown on his face, but it’s more puzzled than angry. They’ve both, in different ways, lived lifetimes while they’d been separated, Len thinks suddenly. They’re new men now.

For better or worse.

“Oh, come on,” Sara says then, the words directed at Rip but drawing Leonard and Mick’s attention back to the others. “What's the harm in us just taking a look around?”

Rip looks skeptical, and Stein chuckles.

“With this group?” he asks. “Clearly, you haven't been paying attention.”

“If I'm in the Old West and I don't get to look around,” Ray interjects plaintively, “I'm going to kick myself. And I promised to tell Kendra all about it.”

“I could help with the kicking,” Leonard mutters, getting an almost unwilling laugh from Mick.

“I'll keep an eye on them,” the former bounty hunter promises the former Time Master. “Don't worry. I'll be a good boy.”

* * *

“So. Stuck here, huh? At least it’s not 1958.”

Kendra looks up as Leonard saunters into the medbay, where she’s trying to get comfortable in one of those ridiculous beds. They’re more comfortable than they look, which doesn’t really say much, but she’s still quite grateful for the distraction, from the surroundings and from her circling thoughts.

Apparently he’s picked up on her discontent with remaining behind. It is, perhaps, a surprise that it’s the team’s master thief who realized it so instinctively. But that’s unfair. Kendra had been in 1958. She knows quite well that Leonard Snart is far more than he seems.

“Yeah,” she sighs. “That’s true. I can imagine what giving birth back then would have been like. But I’m actually tired of reading and…” She shrugs and holds up her empty hands. “I don’t know how to crochet or knit and it’s cliched as hell anyway, but, damn, I’d like something to do with my hands.”

Leonard stops and regards her a moment, long enough that Kendra starts to wonder just what he’s thinking. Then he nods.

“Be right back,” he says solemnly. “OK?”

What else to do? Of course she nods.

Leonard’s not gone long, and he doesn’t extend a book to her on his return, as she’d somewhat expected despite her earlier words. (Another thing she’s learned—he’s a reader, is Leonard Snart.) Instead, he holds out an array of silver tools, which Kendra blinks at even as she reaches out to take them. Then, he reaches into a pocket and pulls out a few more items, which he drops onto the table at her side.

Kendra looks at them, then him.

“Are you seriously trying to teach me how to pick locks?” she asks.

Leonard smiles at her, and it’s not quite a smirk. There’s something…real…about it, Kendra thinks, wrapping her fingers around the slim silver tools. Something that harkens back to what she’d seen of him in 1958, the man who’d done what he had to to survive but still had a true core of humanity underneath, despite all her expectations.

“What?” he says after a moment, the drawl like armor. “It’s something to do with your hands. And it’s a useful skill.”

Kendra regards him, just long enough that he seems to be uncomfortable under her direct gaze.

“You like to pretend to be so cold,” she marvels, then, “but you’re full of shit. You care, Leonard, you care enough that it hurts to pretend otherwise. Even though you do it anyway.”

His chin comes up, although he doesn’t directly argue with the words. He regards her a moment, obviously uneasy, but not backing away despite that. “This _is_ practical,” he insists. “You never know when it will come in handy. And you can keep practicing here. Even while we’re all out…roping dogies or keeping Raymond from going full John Wayne or whatever.”

Kendra eyes him a moment longer, then nods.

“OK,” she says. “Just promise me you won’t rustle any cattle.”

It gets a chuckle…and no promise. But he reaches for the picks, and she lets him take them, watching him pick up a particular lock from the table as well.

“Well. The pin tumbler is the most common…”

* * *

Sometimes the fabrication room is more fun than others. This, Sara thinks, clapping her cowboy hat on her head with a grin, is one of those times.

“I look just like Wyatt Earp,” Ray say happily, turning away from inspecting himself in one of the mirrors and heading out, presumably to show Kendra what a fine figure he cuts in the garb. Rip watches him go with a sigh, then extends an unfamiliar gun to Sara, hilt first.

“Now, the fabricator can make clothing, but you're also going to need era-appropriate protection,” he tells the room at large. “This era can get a little, uh, rough. Now, this should go without saying, but considering this group, I am going to say it... only use these weapons in the case of extreme emergencies.”

“Six-shooters?” Jax asks, grinning, reaching for one himself. He’d had some very reasonable qualms about the time period, but between Gideon’s reassurances about the historical diversity of actual cowboys and the others’ promises that they’d kick the ass of anyone who got certain ideas about the youngest Legend and his right to be there, he was starting to allow some excitement for the idea.

“Are you not coming with us, Captain Hunter?” Stein inquires, turning his own newly acquired hat over in his hands. “From your duster and revolver, I'd imagined you as much an Old West aficionado as Dr. Palmer.”

The captain inclines his head in a way that looks almost bashful to Sara. “Indeed I am,” he allows. “But my time is best spent back here on the ship, plotting our next move against Vandal Savage.” He sighs. “And despite his eagerness, Dr. Palmer would only accompany you if I promised to alert him to any changes in Ms. Saunders’ condition—and I, quite frankly, do not wish to listen to him complain about missing this chance for the rest of this mission.”

“Takin’ one for the team, Rip?” Leonard drawls from near the doorway, although Sara, inspecting her gun, can’t see him from her current position. “Even I gotta thank you for that.”

“Yes, well, besides, as Mr. Rory says, it's only a matter of time before the Hunters find us here.” Rip sighs again. “Please…take care. “

“We'll stay out of trouble,” Sara assures him, then (ignoring the captain’s response) gives her six-shooter one more spin. She holsters the gun and turns, just in time to see Leonard slowly incline his head to deposit his night-black cowboy hat on it, looking up at her with a smirk that’s wicked as hell and twice as sexy.

She saunters over, giving him a thorough once-over while he returns the favor (who is she kidding? He’s probably been staring at her ass the whole time), then reaches out to place her hands on his belt, black leather over black pants and shirt and under his black coat.

“You,” she says with amusement, licking her lips and gazing up at him, “look like sin.”

Leonard’s lips twitch as he studies her in her own western garb, and while Sara’s pretty sure she’s not really pulling off “wicked” or “intimidating” or even anything more than “cute,” he seems to find it attractive nonetheless.

“Well,” he drawls, leaning toward her a little, eyes hooded and dark and promising the very best kind of trouble, “good thing you’re a sinner, then.”

He dips his head as she goes up on her toes to kiss him, a kiss that starts to heat up despite their surroundings, a room full of their teammates and the knowledge of trouble on the way. The rest of it starts to fade away, Mick’s snort and Stein’s chuckle and Rip’s sigh, and despite Leonard’s noted distaste for feelings on display, it’s Sara who finally smiles against his lips and starts to pull back.

“You two really _have_ to do that?” Jax groans, grinning as they break the kiss. Sara turns to whack at his arm in a sisterly fashion, Leonard laughing quietly in the background.

“Yes,” she tells him, “we do.”

* * *

There’s something satisfying, to Leonard’s admittedly…well-developed…sense of drama, about strolling into Salvation with the others, the townsfolk turning to watch, the normal noises of the town seeming to mute and still at their entrance.

Leonard’s seen a western or two in his day, and though he’ll never, ever admit it to Raymond, he’s a bit of a fan. The nobler outlaws of the genre had appealed to the boy trying to make sense of the “jobs” his father had dragged him along on from an all-too-early age, and the gunslingers had seemed heroic after the first time Lewis had put a gun into his hand and told him to point it at someone else.

It’d been a tool to Lewis, no more, just like Leonard himself, but young Leo had reacted to the unfamiliar weight and danger of that weapon by doing what the boy and later the man always did—learning as much about it as possible. Within a few handfuls of years, he not only knew everything he could about every variety of sidearm he could lay his hands on, he was a damn good shot with most of them.

And if he’d practiced with an unloaded gun to get a smooth quick draw just like he’d seen in those old movies…well, no one else really needed to know that.

The saloon they find almost immediately looks like trouble to Leonard’s practiced eye, but he has no problem with that. Mick heads for the bar, and Sara gives Leonard a teasing wink and follows him. Leonard smirks as he watches them go, but he has no interest in the rat piss they’re probably serving in such a fine establishment.

Raymond and Jax are gawking a bit but seem likely to be in no danger. Stein…

Well. Go figure.

“Didn't know you played cards,” he tells the older man, dropping into a seat at Stein’s right, getting a slightly surprised glance and a rather unSteinlike smirk.

“Like you, Mr. Snart, I am an enigma,” Stein tells him with a mixture of solemnity and humor, then turns back to the game.

Leonard is duly impressed, and eventually says so. The professor knows how to play and he’s unexpectedly talented at bluffing.

Stein chuckles a little (to the evidence annoyance of the other men at the table, something Leonard also notes) and regards him with a sidelong smile.

“My father was what some might call a degenerate gambler, others would say criminal,” he says conversationally. “When I was old enough, he'd pull me in on some of his schemes. I picked up a thing or two at a few of the card tables he frequented.”

Leonard considers that. “Hmm,” he says after a moment. “Well. You never know when something will come in handy, right, professor?”

“Indeed, Mr. Snart.”

Of course, then it all goes downhill.

From the moment Stein’s angry opponent snarls at him (and honestly, before), Leonard’s watching him carefully, his hand dropping to his own gun. This might look like an old western come to life, but it’s very real, even if some of the others have lost sight of that. He tries to defuse the situation, but he knows his business, too, and when every sign—the look on the card player’s face, the way he moves, all the clues big and small—say that he’s going to fire…

Well. He might have struggled with the question of Per Degaton, but a clear and present danger (and a full-grown thug) is something completely different.

And, really, he’s somewhat smug that his quick draw is just as good as he thought it was.

Stein, hand still clapped to his own chest, turns and gapes at him after the thug hits the floor. “You killed him!” he stammers.

“You're welcome,” Leonard returns, then looks at the rest of the men who’ve jumped to their feet around the saloon.

He may be attempting to trend toward the hero side of things, but he’s not going to apologize for being what he is and being good at it. These men, dirty and rude and reeking of stale beer and cheap liquor…they remind him of Lewis.

“Your friend drew first, got put down,” he sneers, rising smoothly to his feet. “It was a clean shot.”

It goes pretty much like he should have known it would go.

* * *

Sara’s been expecting a good bar brawl from the moment they walked in the door here, although she’s a little surprised that it’s Leonard who touches it off. (She’s been planning to start one herself, honestly.) Mick, for all his fine words, hadn’t downed many of the vile shots before he’d simply lowered his head to the bar and started to snore, and he doesn’t even twitch when the shot echoes throughout the saloon.

She whirls, gets a glimpse of Leonard rising to his feet, Stein staring at the fallen man, and then the other thug firing a punch at Leonard’s head. He ducks, then swings, and the place erupts.

Sara can’t help it. She laughs out loud, diving into the fray, working her way over to Leonard, where they fall into a position more or less back to back.

“You all right?” she yells, ducking the chair a man a good 10 inches taller than her aims at her head.

“Peachy!” he yells back, driving a fist into the nose of the first man who’d attacked him, back for more. “The professor apparently cheats at cards.”

“I do _not_!” Stein’s yell echoes back at them from he’s taken covered behind an overturned table.

“It’s OK, professor!” Sara shouts back, grinning and flashing Leonard a smirk that he returns, even as he sidesteps another blow and kicks a man in the shins before tripping him to the floor. “So does Snart!”

They have a good ol’ time until a gun fired toward the ceiling brings everything to a stop, Legends and locals looking toward the tall, scarred man in the center of the saloon.

And that’s how they all meet Jonah Hex.

* * *

“You think you're the first time travelers I've ever come across?” their would-be rescuer says later, outside the saloon, as the Legends blink at him. Leonard (who hadn’t particularly wanted the bar brawl to end yet) frowns at him, trying to put pieces he doesn’t have together. Ignorance is not an appealing feeling. Never has been.

“Uh, yes,” Stein returns when no one else speaks.

Hex ignores him. “Where is he? I got some words that need saying.”

“Where is who?” Sara speaks up suspiciously.

“Rip Hunter.”

It seems there are even more details their good captain hasn’t been telling them.

* * *

Raymond and Jax take Hex to see the captain, and although Leonard will admit to a good deal of curiosity about the history there, he’s also not horribly eager to get scolded for his part in the festivities at the saloon. He steps away as Sara steers Mick toward his quarters (and Gideon’s intoxication remedy), heading for their own room, and his own thoughts.

It’s not that he feels bad about the incident at the saloon, really. He’d done what he had to do. And, sure, it’d caused trouble, but the man _would_ have fired at Stein at close range, and even with all the resources of the medbay not too far away, that would have been catastrophic.

But even as he’s staring off into space, mulling the incident over, the door slides open behind him. Only one other person could come in here without asking. He hears Sara’s thoughtful hum even he turns around, smiling as he sees her still in her own Old West gear, hat and boots and holster and all.

Sara, for her part, looks up at him, smiling back, a sight that would be adorable (not that he’s going to tell her that, ever) if the expression wasn’t so openly...well, lascivious.

“I was sort of hoping that I’d get back here and find you waiting,” she says in a low, slightly husky tone. “Wearing that hat, and nothing else.”

Oh, yeah? Leonard can work with that. He steps closer and matches both tone and expression, grateful for any distraction, let alone such an alluring one. (And he’s pretty sure Sara knows that.). “I thought you liked the outfit.”

“I _do_.” Sara looks up at him through her lashes, smiling a very sultry smile. “But…” She goes up on her toes, wrapping her fingers around the black silk scarf at his neck and putting her mouth very close to his ear, so close that her lips brush his earlobe, warm breath distracting and arousing…but not as much as the frankly rather filthy suggestion she breathes into it.

Leonard clears his throat, shifting a little, then smirks back down at her.

“Ms. Lance, I may, as you say, look like sin, but you _sound_ like it,” he drawls, letting his hands settle at her waist, over her gun belt.

“Mmm.” Sara’s still on her toes, fingers running over the lapels of his black duster, down under it to his vest, and the collar of his shirt, then along under his suspenders. “How about we _both_ act like it?”

“That...could be arranged.”

* * *

Leonard dozes a bit, but eventually finds himself awake, wondering what the others might be up to in the time period...and more about the mystery posed by Jonah Hex. He rolls over with a sigh, annoyed at the impulse, wondering if Sara also wants to go explore a bit more.

But she’s sound asleep, her cowboy hat partially still on her head and partially crushed beneath her —wearing nothing else, except for the sheet that’s wrapped around her, barely. He smiles a little, tucking one errant piece of blond hair behind her ear and out of her face, and she sighs a little, shifting but remaining asleep.

But something’s still pushing him. An itching under his skin like the one that’d sent him out of the Waverider to meet Sara and the others back in 1958, and one that, to a lesser extent, has been responsible for a few other impulsive decisions he’s made since. Nothing truly uncharacteristic, not really, but just...almost spontaneous, far more spontaneous than he usually allows himself to be.

Still. His curiosity eventually gets the better of him, and Leonard rises with a sigh, swinging his feet over the edge of the bed and reaching for the tangle of black clothing that’d been discarded off to the side of the room. He’s rather fond of all the layers this time calls for (although Sara hadn’t been, a bit earlier) and it still doesn’t take him long to dress. He quietly leaves the room, turning his hat over in his hands and frowning a little to himself.

A query to Gideon gains him the information that Raymond, Mick and Jax are gathered just outside the ship. Leonard had been considering seeing if Kendra wants any new locks to work on but decides that trio is far more likely to need supervision of some sort.

He’s not wrong.

“There you are!” the scientist greets him with an air of relief as Leonard saunters out of the Waverider’s hatch. “We kinda need you or Sara for this, but Gideon said she wasn’t going to disturb either of you.” He looks momentarily perplexed. “For some reason. What were you doing?”

Leonard sighs, putting his hat on and rolling his eyes. “How did Kendra manage to get pregnant, again?” he mutters.

Jax snickers and Mick chokes, but the comment sails over Raymond’s head. The man is evidently focused on some grand plan, based on the gleam in his eyes and the eager grin on his face, but he needs to slow down and...wait.

“Where’d you get that?” Leonard frowns at the silver star on the inventor’s coat, interrupting the headlong explanation again.

Raymond looks down at it, then beams at him. “I’m the sheriff,” he says proudly. “The sheriff of Salvation.”

“Seriously? Who gave you that?” Leonard eyes him. “It didn’t come out of a cereal box, did it?”

The other man gives him a woebegone look as Mick snorts again. “The former sheriff.”

“Who...?”

“...decided to get out of town. Suddenly.”

“Uh huh.” Leonard looks at Mick, who’s smirking, and Jax, who looks like he’s going to lose control of a fit of giggles. “Because that’s not suspicious.”

“It’s OK,” Raymond tells him seriously, drawing himself up importantly. ““We’re going to take on the Stillwater gang.”

“The who now?”

“The guys we were fighting back at the saloon,” Jax cuts in. “You, uh, sort of shot one of them.”

“I’m not shedding any tears,” Leonard retorts, but Raymond is pontificating again.

“Mr. Hex said Jeb Stillwater and his gang have been raiding this town for the past three months,” he said seriously. “A real reign of terror. And I aim to do something about it.”

Mick snorts yet again at the response, and Jax buries his head in his hands. “Ray, man, please stop,” he says, voice muffled, as Leonard stares at the inventor.

“And you want me to what...?” he drawls after a moment. “Speak sternly to them? Take over?”

“What? No!”

“Then spit it out.”

* * *

Leonard’s not there when Sara wakes, but she’s not too surprised. He may have tried to act all blasé about being in the Old West, but she knows him, and she knows he’s enjoying this foray, from the Man in Black attire to the bar brawl to the six-shooters.

Plus, that quick-draw trick back in the saloon wasn’t, the assassin knows, the sort of thing one can just pull off without copious amounts of practice. But she won’t tell everyone his secret if he doesn’t.

When asked, Gideon reports that only Rip and Kendra are on the ship at the moment, so after a few minutes, Sara stretches and gladly puts on a pair of shorts and a tank top instead of the annoying multiple layers of western wear. Then she goes to the medbay.

“Hey!”

Kendra looks up, smiling, as she sees her friend. “Hey.”

“I thought I’d drop in and see how...wait.” Sara stops and studies the tools in Kendra’s hands, then the items on the table next to her before blinking back up at her. “Are those _lockpicks_?”

Kendra chuckles. “They are,” she says, waving two of the picks. “Apparently, this is the Leonard Snart answer to being cooped up and bored. I will admit, I’m enjoying the puzzle.” She leans over and sets the tools down. “And who knows? It might come in handy someday.”

“Huh.” Sara reflects that Leonard, no matter how well she gets to know him, may always be a surprise in some ways. The thought is appealing. Then she shakes her head and focuses on Kendra. “How are you? How’s Junior there?”

The other woman’s smile is fond. “We’re both fine. No more contractions.” Her smile grows. “Ray keeps coming by to check on me and tell me all about the Old West, including bar brawls and quick-draw Snart.” She winks as Sara chuckles. “I think he’s having fun. I just hope the others can keep him out of trouble.”

“I’m sure they’ll be fine.” Sara tilts her head and studies Kendra again. “What’s bugging you?”

Kendra glances away. It’s a pretty clear tell. “What do you mean?”

“You’re edgy. And I don’t think it’s just Junior’s impending arrival.” Sara leans back in her chair. “You don’t have to tell me. But you might feel better if you do.” She frowns. “Everything OK with Ray?”

“Oh, yeah. It’s good, it really is. It’s just…” Kendra stops.

Sara waits.

Then the other woman sighs, looking away again. “I keep feeling like I should leave the ship,” she murmurs. “I don’t know why. Just that there’s something out there I should see.”

“Maybe you could at least take a walk,” Sara offers. “We could ask Gideon; I could go with you…”

“No.” Kendra sounds frustrated. “Farther out. I don’t know.” Her hands tighten into fists. “It’s a pull. I don’t like it.”

Sara hesitates. “Maybe there’s a…a Carter…here?” she says after another pause, trying to identify the thought Kendra’s so uneasy with. Her friend’s glance tells her that she’s on to something. “You think?”

“Hmmm.”

“Well, then, he’d have his own Kendra, right? And you have Ray.”

“Yes.” Kendra stares off in the distance a moment, then shakes her head, a smile crossing her face. “I do. And I’m happy. It’s just...” She sighs, then gives Sara a wry smile. “Carter seemed convinced we could only wind up together. I keep...waiting for something to go wrong.”

Sara smirks at her. “I think Carter was just confused by the fact that you’re the only one who’d put up with him.”

“You might have a point about that.”

* * *

Leonard’s part in the initial confrontation is a bit more than just sniping a gun out of Jeb Stillwater’s hand, no matter what Raymond thinks. If the father-to-be is going to stand out there and make a target of himself in the Old West, then the least Leonard can do (more for Kendra than for Raymond, he tells himself) is make sure he’s covered.

And it’s a damn fine shot, if he does say so himself. He smirks a little at Raymond’s assertion that he has “sharpshooters all around” instead of one crook with a rifle, but it does the job, and as the Stillwater gang rides off, he withdraws back into the building where he’d been perched. Ready, for once, to join the others in some celebration, instead of a postmortem of how things had gone wrong.

For now.


	5. With You til Morning Light

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Many thanks, as always, to LarielRomeniel for the beta.

Raymond is beaming from ear to ear with the victory his bluff and Leonard’s shot had pulled out. Jax is pretty much bouncing, and even Stein and Mick are grinning. But Leonard himself is a little more inclined to agree with Jonah Hex, whose gloomy outcome is just a little closer to his own native pessimism. (He prefers to think of it as realism.)

“For a bunch of time travelers, you don't seem to understand the future much,” Hex tells them, harsh voice scornful as they pause on the bridge. His gaze flickers, challenging, to Rip, who glances away. More there than meets the eye, it seems. Leonard leans against the wall, watching the captain for more tells as Hex goes on, “The day will come when you'll all leave... and Salvation will end up like Calvert.”

Rip flinches, badly. Leonard, watching, frowns.

“What's a Calvert?” Mick queries, looking around. Post-Chronos Mick is a lot more curious than the old one, Leonard’s noticed. He’s still not quite sure if that’s a good thing.

But RIp shoots them down. “A closed matter. A word, Mr. Hex?” he says, taking a step out of the room and turning away. “I believe you've all done enough for one day."

“Well, now I definitely want to know what a Calvert is.”

“Me, too,” Leonard mutters, moving closer to Mick, who eyes him, but apparently decides they’re still OK. “Gideon?” he says, nearly in unison with Stein, after Hex follows the captain out.

"Calvert was a town in Oklahoma during most of the 1850s and 1960s,” the AI says promptly.

"Was?”

“That is all you need to know for the moment.” The computerized voice is almost prim, Gideon at her most authoritative...or protective. Leonard and Mick share a glance.

“I think,” Leonard drawls, after a moment, “that we need to know more, Gideon. Spill.”

“Then you will have to take it up with Captain Hunter.” The tone is now flat.

“Good captain hiding things from us again?”

Gideon pauses. Leonard hears Mick, Jax and Stein talking in the background, but he keeps his eyes fixed on the nearest screen, the closest he figures he can come to looking the AI in the eye.

“Mr. Snart,” she says finally, “would you like me to tell the entire team about...some piece of your past? Say, the Schuyler sapphire job of 2004?”

Jax and Stein look at Leonard with some trepidation, but Mick chuckles a bit evilly, and Leonard allows himself a slight smile, even though the reference is a somewhat painful one.

“Gideon, is that a threat?” he drawls.

“No,” the AI returns. “It is an example. I will not...spill...about your past to simply anyone who asks. Neither will I do so about any other member of this team unless there is a very clear and compelling reason to do so.”

“Ah. There’s something a little more personal about this to ol’ Rip, huh?”

“As you say.”

* * *

It’s Stein (busted while stealing medicine, to Leonard’s amusement) and Raymond who finally get the truth of Calvert out of the captain and then share it with the team, but Leonard doesn’t hear about that until later. As the group disperses, he watches Mick wander off toward the galley, then follows, slowly, hands clasped behind his back, considering his words.

But when he arrives, sauntering into the room in time to watch Mick put away a huge bite of a truly impressive sandwich, he decides to just keep it simple, parking his hip against the doorway and folding his arms before speaking.

“You doin’ all right?”

Mick eyes him, chewing his mouthful of bread and cheese and meat. Then he shrugs.

“Yeah.” He considers the sandwich, then shrugs again. “Don’t I seem alright?”

 He does, actually. But... “You were Chronos, barely a day ago. And then you weren’t.” Leonard takes another step into the room and waves a hand. “And yeah, Gideon’s still monitoring your brainwaves and will...spill...if anything goes haywire, but it’s still...”

His voice trails off. The situation is many things. Few of them simple.

Mick lets the silence stretch, taking another bite, then another.

“M’ fine,” he grunts, finally, wiping his mouth with his sleeve. (Leonard winces.) “Waitin’ for the other shoe to drop.”

Leonard moves closer, thinking about his own ponderings about the Time Masters and events. “How so?”

“Wit’ the Hunters.” Mick sits down the sandwich and regards him, leaning forward onto his elbows. “None of you are taking this seriously,” he says gruffly. “Not really, not even you, Snart. But I know. I mighta been the dumb one once, but...” He shakes his head at Leonard’s noise of denial. “No, really, you were the brains of the operation. And that was OK. I didn’t want to be.”

He picks up his sandwich again. “But I had to, as Chronos. And I’ve seen things, Snart. The Time Masters...they play the long game. Kinda like you. But no matter what the Brit thinks, they don’t have much of a code. Not when it comes to getting what they want, what they think is best. And they think they _always_ know best.” Mick eyes him. “Also, kinda like you.”

Leonard ignores the shot. There’s something there, the thread of an idea, the trace of a pattern. “What do you...”

But Mick’s apparently had enough of being quite so forthcoming. He takes another massive bite of sandwich, then says around the edges: "Where’s Blondie? Thought she was your partner in crime these days.”

That’s meant as a hit too, Leonard thinks, but he chooses not to take it as one. Instead, he just shrugs, pulling up a chair, taking a seat when Mick doesn’t seem to mind. “It’s not like we’re joined at the hip.” He leans forward, lacing his fingers together on the counter, a smirk tugging at his lips. “And crime doesn’t have much to do with it.”

Mick snorts and leers a little. “So I hear.” He shrugs when Leonard eyes him. “What, it’s a secret? Then you shouldn’t go around making goo-goo eyes at each other.” Then he barks out another laugh, pointing at his old friend. “You should see the look on your face.”

“Goo-goo eyes?” Leonard asks in distaste, sitting back, then reaching for a napkin to wipe up an errant bit of mustard on the counter. “Really? I haven’t once in my life... _goo-goo_ eyes?”

“Snart, trust me, it’s absolutely sickening.”

* * *

They don’t get much of a reprieve, however, before Raymond, giddy with the prospect of more Old West action, finds them. Hex had confirmed Stein’s intel on the Stillwater gang’s location, and it’s time to ride. (Raymond, Leonard decides, has far too much fun saying that in his best John Wayne intonation.)

He considers asking Sara to join them, but the inventor has relayed the information that she’s keeping the restless Kendra company in the medbay, and it seems wisest not to mess with anything that’s helping out the pregnant lady. It’s a decision that Mick doesn’t really agree with.

“We could've used Sara on this roundup,” he grumbles, guiding his horse along the narrow path they’re riding, so adroitly that Leonard has to wonder where (and when) he’d learned. Mick’s just as much of a city boy as he is—or, at least, he had been before the Time Masters took him.

For his own part, Leonard's pretty sure Hex has given him the equine version of training wheels, as the gray gelding he’s been paired with seems to ignore (perhaps wisely) any of his attempts to steer it and simply follows the others.

Hex looks around at him, frowning. “A lady? You crazy?”

Yes, Leonard thinks with a sigh as Mick snorts in laughter, it’s perhaps just as well that Sara hadn’t come along.

* * *

Of course, maybe if she had, things wouldn’t have gone sideways quite so badly. They go back to the ship with Stillwater…but also without Jax.

* * *

As Stein asserts back on the ship, it could be a simple matter: Trade Stillwater for Jax.

But it’s not. Of course, it’s not.

“If we release Stillwater,” Raymond says, as earnestly as Raymond says almost everything, “we're back to square one and the town is still in danger.”

“So is the kid,” Leonard growls back at him, pacing the bridge. "Raymond, you ever think with that vaunted brain you got?” He stops in front of the inventor. “Think about the time period. And it’s _Jax_.” He nods, turning abruptly away as the would-be sheriff’s eyes widen. “We got their leader. Who’s got an all-white outfit, far as I can tell.” He scowls at nothing in particular. “And maybe Hex ain’t a…a true believer in that uniform he wears, but lots of people still are.”

Stein takes a shaky breath. “Jefferson is, at the moment, in no overt distress,” he says quietly. “But...Mr. Snart is right. Some of the rest of us, we tend to forget...”

Raymond looks distressed, but he doesn’t back down. “And we'll figure out a way to get him back without releasing Stillwater,” he says firmly.

“I got a notion.”

Leonard flicks a glance at Hex as the other man saunters into the room. He hasn’t decided quite what he thinks of the bounty hunter, save that there’s all sorts of interesting vibes between him and Rip. There’s a pragmatism there he appreciates, but Hex is a creature of his time, including the Confederate uniform, and he’s not at all sure about that.

“Set up a quick draw,” the scarred man continues. “You win, get your guy back." He pauses. “You lose, you set Stillwater free.”

“And, by "lose," you mean..." Stein starts.

“Get shot and killed,” Leonard says shortly, folding his arms.

“Oh, great. Pistols at high noon."

Mick, perhaps predictably, is all for the idea. Stein is emphatically not. Hunter doesn’t seem able to offer another plan, and Leonard has to admit that he’s coming up blank as well.

But then it’s Raymond, honorable to a fault and full of his image of Old West nobility, who volunteers.

“No one else is stepping forward,” he says, so earnestly again. “Plus, I'm a decent shot... at least I was with an air rifle.”

Oh, _enough_.

Leonard sighs and straightens from his slouch against the chair.

“Like hell you will,” he says. “ _I_ will.”

He holds up a hand, pointing at the other man as Raymond starts to protest. “I’ve got a better shot than you. Literally. And…” Here, he pauses, hesitating at the sentiment his next words reveal. “…and I’m not about to become a father.”

Raymond can’t even argue with that, but he sees the inventor struggling to find a way.

He’s never wanted this part of being a hero—or a legend. But apparently, he’s found his line in the sand, right here. This kid, Raymond and Kendra’s, is going to have parents who give a shit about him, who will make sure he grows up to be…well. Something better than a crook and a rogue.

And who knows? Leonard smirks a little. _He_ might even be able to win this shootout.

The whole thing touches off another quarrel between Hunter and Hex, however, one that ends in even more revelations about the whole Calvert matter—and the bounty hunter decking the captain, something Leonard’s always pleased to see.

“I deserved that,” Hunter mutters, blotting the blood at his lip. Leonard lifts an eyebrow and glances across the room at Mick, who smirks back at him.

“You deserve a lot worse.” Hex scowls down at him “You knew, and you still left?”

“Of course I knew. I was a Time Master. And therein lay the problem.” Hunter struggles to his feet, shaking his head. “Like Raymond, like Martin—like even Mr. Snart, apparently—I felt the pull of heroism, of this era's penchant for being rife with opportunities to make a difference."

Hunter sighs, even as Leonard tries to figure out how he feels about that “even” and that “apparently.” “That's one of the things that called to me, and that is why I had to leave,” he continues. “Because had I stayed... I could no longer have remained a Time Master.”

Then he nods, once, looking Hex right in the eye. “But I'm no longer a Time Master... which is why I'll face Stillwater."

“Wait!” Raymond protested, even as Leonard snaps, “I _said_ I’d do it."

Hunter turns, running a hand through his hair. “Yes, and I know you make your own decisions, Mr. Snart, but I’d rather keep Ms. Lance from wanting to murder me, should you lose.” He gives Leonard a slight smile of his own. “And while you’re a demonstrably good shot—as evidenced by this whole mess—you’ve never participated in this particular brand of mayhem before.”

He turns away before Leonard can try to argue again. “Send word to Stillwater's posse. I believe high noon is in less than three hours.”

* * *

Sara wants to help her friend as much as possible. She really does. But after an afternoon full of cards and chatting and justifying all manner of treats from Gideon by virtue of “Kendra wants it,” she’s restless as hell—and more than a little curious about the relative radio silence from the others.

“Well,” she says with a sigh after they polish off a massive piece of chocolate cake, “this has been fun, but I think I should go see what sort of trouble the boys are getting into.” She stands with a spine-cracking stretch. “It’s been long enough that I'm sure there’s something.”

“I would be more surprised if there wasn’t.” Kendra rests her chin on her hand, wearing a wistful expression. “Gideon? Can I at least walk around the ship?”

“That would be fine, Ms. Saunders,” the AI replies promptly. “Your readings and the baby’s are quite healthy and very regular.” She pauses. “I would, however, recommend staying on the ship for this stop. Just in case. Despite any distractions.”

“And that’s not worrisome at all,” Sara mutters, reaching out to squeeze Kendra’s hand. “I’m going to go see what’s happening, maybe put on the whole get-up again and go see Salvation.”

“Have fun. Make sure Ray’s behaving. And Snart.” The other woman gets to her feet, gingerly, stretching as well. “Oh, that feels good. I need some exercise.”

"My guess? Ray’s probably behaving. Leonard probably isn’t. I like him that way.” But Sara pauses on her way out the door. “Kendra?”

“Hmm?”

She considers her words, then shrugs. “Whoever’s out there—Old West Kendra, Old West Carter—they're living their lives. You have to live yours. Right?”

Kendra regards her, then gives her a small smile, one that mingles gratitude and understanding. Sara, who’d never had many female friends back in her own time, is a little surprised to find how much it warms her. She thinks of Ginny and Rebecca then, and other unexpected gifts from the ‘50s.

“Right,” the other woman says quietly. “Well, for now, that life’s going to include a shower and a change of clothes. And...thank you, Sara.”

* * *

Leonard’s not in their room. Sara shrugs and dresses in her Old West clothing before heading back out. She’s just about to lift her voice and ask Gideon where the others are, though, when she turns a corner and runs right into her very own man in black, who lifts his hands to catch her.

“Hey!” Sara grins at him, then pauses, nothing the very complicated expression that follows his initial smile. “I’ve been keeping Kendra company for a while. What’s going on?”

She sees Leonard consider the question.

“Ray’s the sheriff,” he says finally. “I’ve been playing sniper-slash-deputy for him. Stein’s been stealing medicine to save some kid, Jeb Stillwater’s in the brig, his gang has Jax and our captain’s about to take part in a gunfight.”

“ _What_?”

* * *

The scene at high noon on the streets of Salvation feels like something out of a movie, almost exciting if not for the fact that Rip’s life is on the line.

And while Sara’s still dealing with her feelings about Leonard nearly being the one out there in the street, she has to admit that losing the very person they’ve come on this mission to help probably isn’t the best game plan out there either. Mick has assured them all that he can fly the Waverider—but since Mick’s only a day or so away from years as a violent temporal bounty hunter, that’s not all that reassuring, either.

Sara stands with Stein and Mick, watching Rip and Ray as they wait for Leonard to herd Stillwater out of the town jail, where he’d been placed temporarily until his gang could show up with Jax. The youngest Legend looks annoyed but fine, waiting opposite the others, hands tied. Stein has confirmed his counterpart’s relative good health.

Stillwater looks just as ornery as before when he emerges from the jail, doing his best to ignore the fact that Leonard’s holding him at gunpoint, and the two men cross to the middle of the street, then turn to face Rip and Ray.

"I'll be drawing for Sheriff Palmer,” Rip tells them, voice raised. Leonard gives a fancier-than-strictly-necessary flip of his revolver, extending the hilt to Stillwater, who eyes him, but accepts it.

“How do me and my boys know you're going to keep your word?” the man says, checking the weapon.

“Sheriff Palmer's a _straight_ shooter," Leonard tells him solemnly, a corner of his mouth ticking up as he turns his head to catch Sara’s eye. She bites back a completely inappropriate huff of laughter at the double entendre, but then it's time, it’s high noon, and everything hinges on just how much Rip recalls from his time in Calvert, before everything went to hell.

Turns out, quite a bit.

* * *

Leonard can’t help a wry tip of his head toward the captain as Stillwater, dead as a doornail, hits the dust of Salvation’s main street, but his next action is to cut Jax free, following the younger man toward the other Legends as Stein rushes up to meet him.

“Jefferson, are you all right?” the professor says, urgently, as if he couldn’t tell through their bond.

“Yeah.” The kid blinks at Hunter. “Did you just _shoot_ somebody for me?”

“Yeah. You're welcome,” the captain returns, then turns and lifts an eyebrow at Leonard, who acknowledges the parallel with another tip of his head. Both sides of Firestorm owe their lives, or at least their freedom, to the art of the quick draw today, he thinks with amusement, turning as Sara steps past them, her eyes on the edge of town.

“I don't think we're done here yet,” she says, quietly, and the others turn to follow her gaze.

Townsfolk start running, parents grabbing their children and hustling them toward buildings and other forms of cover. Some take aim, and gunshots echo. The three hulking figures, however, ignore them, continuing to advance.

“They’ve found us,” Hunter breathes, his gun back in his hand. Mick steps forward, though, throwing his arms open wide.

“Ah, friends!” he roars, giving Leonard a brief moment of panic before Mick raises his gun and takes aim. “Welcome!”

It’s almost amusing, how quickly Rip’s fine words about protecting the timeline get discarded when the shit really goes down. Firestorm roars into the sky and Sara pulls out her bo, but while the captain had apparently managed to snag another of his fancy revolvers for Hex and the ATOM suit for Raymond, he'd neglected to grab Leonard’s cold gun or Mick’s heat gun. Leonard grimly distracts one of the Hunters by firing his other revolver, the bullets pinging off the armor, before Mick tackles the figure and gets in a few good licks.

Leonard takes a look around to see if any of the others are in need of assistance, but the fight’s over almost too fast. Sara straightens her hat, collapses her bo and winks at him, and Raymond rushes back to full size, grinning. Len shrugs and turns, just in time to see Mick take out the last Hunter standing.

“Fool,” the bounty hunter growls into his face, “the Time Masters have initiated Omega Protocols.” He laughs weakly. “The Pilgrim's coming for you, Chronos. Your deaths are just a matter of time."

“Yeah, yeah,” Mick mutters, letting the man drop. He shrugs, turning toward the others, pausing as he sees Leonard watching him. “Well, that was easy."

* * *

After making such a mess, it only makes sense that they help clean it up a little. The townsfolk are more than willing to embrace them, now, and while Leonard may roll his eyes about the pragmatic change of heart, well, he can understand it.

He’s just arrived back into town after helping Mick and Jax make sure the Stillwater gang really had abandoned its hideout, getting the gray horse stabled with its fellows and then sauntering slowly along the main street, taking it all in. It’s been interesting. He’s not sure he really cares to return, but it’s been...interesting.

“Mr. Snart.”

Leonard pauses, just a moment, then turns, regarding the tall figure that’s regarding him in return.

“Mr. Hex,” he returns after a pause, slipping into the drawl, hooking his fingers into his belt loops, that much closer to his gun. He’s still not entirely sure he trusts Hex. He’s guessing that might be mutual. “Didn’t even know you knew my name.”

The scarred man shrugs. “Been askin’ around.”

“That so?”

“It is.” Hex studies him. “I think you and I, we have a bit more in common than the others in your ragtag group of...saints and sinners."

Leonard lifts an eyebrow, and the bounty hunter continues with a shrug. “Pa that liked his drink, liked even more to use his fists on his wife and son.” He nods as Leonard frowns. “A little better understanding, shall we say, of the way the world works. Issues with...blood brothers. And…”

Hex turns his head, looks over toward the saloon, and Leonard follows his gaze. Sara’s standing there, speaking with great animation to Stein and a somewhat taken-aback woman and young boy. She's still in her western gear, but she’s holding her hat in her hands, and the late afternoon sun is shining on her golden hair. She’s beautiful, but it’s not just that, her spirit shines through, and he can’t see how every single eye in the town isn’t drawn right to her.

Leonard watches her another moment, then looks at Hex. The other man is also watching Sara, but in a way that suggests, to a careful observer, that he’s seeing something else, really. Someone. Someone in the past, not the present, no matter where he’s looking at the time.

After only another few seconds, though, the bounty hunter shakes his head, then looks back at Leonard, expression opaque again.

“Well,” he concludes. “That’s prob’ly best left to memory, for me, anyway.”

Leonard nods, deciding to leave it be, and frowns. “You gotta point?”

Hex seems to consider his words for a minute, then shrugs. “I’m just sayin’,” he says carefully. “Set your feet on that path, with these…heroes…you don’ know where it’s gonna lead. You OK with that? Best be, before you take any more of those steps.”

Leonard’s eyes narrow. He’s not sure of the man’s motives, but he’s never taken kindly to people questioning him. “I know what I’m doing.”

Hex shrugs again. “You did a fine thing, offering to take Sheriff Palmer’s place, but you’d be no less dead if you had. Despite all his noble words, that’s what being a hero usually gets you.”

“Maybe.” Leonard, personally, still thinks he could’ve won that shootout. “And I’m no _hero_.”

Hex doesn’t argue. “Well, then. You take care, Mr. Snart. And I do hope you’re wrong ‘bout that.”

As Leonard watches, the scarred man untethers his horse from a post nearby, then swings into the saddle. He nods to Leonard, then clicks his tongue to the gelding, swinging it around and heading out of town.

Rip comes out of the sheriff’s office down the street, just then, and Hex reins in, pausing. The two men exchange a few words, and Leonard slowly starts ambling toward them, curiosity getting the better of him.

"...perhaps we will see each other again, my friend,” Hunter says, his voice quiet—and not, Leonard thinks, very optimistic.

“Yeah. I reckon that'd be okay." And then Jonah Hex rides off, not quite into the sunset, but back into history, and the two men watch him go.

Leonard eyes Hunter a moment, but the other man ignores him. Like Hex himself earlier, his eyes seem to be looking at something that’s not really there. Calvert, maybe? Instead of the perhaps too aptly named Salvation?

“Interesting fella,” he comments eventually.

Hunter sighs. “Indeed,” he murmurs. And no matter how much Leonard might like to yank his chain here, he just can’t bring himself to do it. Truly, he’s getting soft.

“This town's seen a lot of interesting,” he says instead. “Suppose you got one of those doohickies that erases people's memories or something?”

“No.” But the question seems to have done its job. Hunter seems to shake himself awake, then gives Leonard a wry look. “But... skepticism and disbelief are a far more effective tool.”

“Ah.” It does make sense. “So, if anybody here talks, no one will believe them.”

“Would you, Mr. Snart?”

* * *

As is usual with their lives as of late, however, leaving one problem behind them simply means careening headlong into another. The team stands on the bridge, listening as Mick explains about Omega Protocols and the Pilgrim. The former bounty hunter seems just a little rattled by the development, but given how easy it’d been to take out the Hunters, Leonard’s unimpressed.

"Ooh, scary,” he drawls, leaning on the table next to Sara. “Pretty sure we can handle ourselves.”

She flicks an amused glance at him, but the captain’s not so blasé about it either.

“Indeed,” he comments, moving across the bridge, “which is why she won't be going after the present-day versions of you.”

“She's hunting our younger selves,” Mick cuts in gruffly. “And she won't stop until all of us have been...erased.”

That’s disconcerting, true. But they barely have time to digest the concept when Gideon’s on it, an array of digital information rolling down one of the ship’s viewscreens before the view flickers to the image of a black-clad woman next to a smaller ship that nonetheless looks like it’s the second cousin to the Waverider.

“Captain Hunter, I have located the Pilgrim’s ship across the timeline,” the AI announces. “She’s landed in Central City, 1985, and is on the move. I’m scanning archived footage from the time, looking for Dr. Stein, Mr. Snart or Mr. Rory.”

The team members move toward their seats, knowing that a jump is on the way no matter who the Pilgrim’s target is at this time. Mick simply plops down in the nearest one with a snort.

“They’re probably goin’ after me first, Gideon,” he says with a shrug. “They’ll figure I’m the most dangerous. ‘Cause of the whole Chronos thing.”

Something about that doesn’t make sense. Leonard frowns at the other man even as he drops in his own jump seat. “But...”

“I believe I have found the Pilgrim’s target.”

Leonard looks up at the screen, then...and straight into the past.

* * *

Sara hears his intake of breath and glances over. Leonard’s frozen, though, staring at the screen, looking as if he’s seen a ghost. She follows his gaze, studying the footage, grainy black-and-white film that looks like it might have come from a store security camera.

There’s a boy there, short and skinny, with a mop of unkept black curls, a battered backpack, and a dark sweater that’s far too big for him. He’s inspecting a row of groceries on the shelf in front of him, not snack foods but staples like pasta and sauce, and it’s all too clear to a practiced eye that theft is on his mind.

Then the boy glances around, and the camera gets, momentarily, a good shot of his face. Sara sucks in a breath too—because the bones of that face are familiar, and they’re not Mick’s.

“The Pilgrim isn’t going after you first, Mr. Rory,” Hunter says quietly, looking not unsympathetic as he settles into the captain’s chair. “Gideon, please set a course. We need to get there ASAP.”

Leonard closes his eyes as Mick also makes a noise of recognition. Then he shakes his head, opens his eyes and makes himself focus on the underfed, wary-looking boy on the screen.

“No,” he says quietly, “she’s going after me.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wasn't all that familiar with the comics canon Jonah Hex, so I did a little research. He has quite a bit in common with our Snart: abusive, alcoholic father (whom he tried to kill at one point), a blood brother with whom he had a very serious falling out, and a distinct sense of honor although he's pretty firmly an anti-hero.
> 
> And his love interest at one point was a woman named White...Fawn.


	6. I Remember Clearly

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This takes place during the first part of "Last Refuge" as it occurs in this timeline. Many thanks to LarielRomeniel for the beta!

The boy in the brig is sitting with his back against the wall, bony knees pulled up against his chest and arms resting on those knees. He’s looking down, face obscured by that dark mop of hair, shoulders set in a posture that suggests plenty of youthful stubbornness, but Leonard, watching, knows that he’s just biding his time and considering his situation before making some sort of move.

That’s him, after all.

Young Leonard Snart is in the brig, instead of a cargo hold, because after only 15 minutes or so in the hold, he’d managed to pop open a control panel and start messing around inside. Gideon had raised her voice in something as close to panic as he’s ever heard from the AI, and Rip had proceeded to the hold with alacrity, removing the young criminal in the making even as he’d earned a firm kick in the shins and a scratched arm for doing so.

Sara and Raymond had pulled the boy from 1985, arriving at the convenience store right about the same time as the Pilgrim. Raymond, Len’s told, had taken on the part of distracting the Time Masters’ assassin while Sara had darted into the store even as the clerk had run outside to see what all the excitement was.

She’d arrived to see young Leonard taking characteristically practical advantage of the fuss, sweeping an armload of Chef Boyardee and canned veggies into his backpack before turning to grab a package of chocolate bars. He’d looked up to see her stop there, staring at him, and hesitated just long enough for Sara to put Rip’s knockout device into play, catching him and carrying his limp form out through the back door.

“He’s just biding his time, isn’t he?” Leonard looks up as Sara speaks, just before she takes a seat next to him. She’s been trying not to study the younger him with too much fascination, although he knows she’s curious.

“Yeah, probably,” Leonard allows. “Not sure what he’ll do, but…something. He won’t just give up yet.” He sighs. “ _I’ll_ do. _I_ won’t. _I_ think.” He looks down at his hands, folded in front of himself. “Lotta weird has happened since I got on this boat, but this definitely takes the prize.”

Sara makes a considering noise. “He—younger you--is taking all this weirdness awful well.” She shakes her head. “He doesn’t even seem scared.”

Leonard darts a glance at her. “He’s terrified,” he says quietly. “Not so much for himself—although there’ll be hell to pay from Lewis if he’s too late getting home—but for Lisa.” He shrugs uncomfortably. “There’s a 3-year-old girl out there depending on him, and if he doesn’t make it back, she’ll be pretty much on her own.”

He doesn’t look at Sara again, but he can feel her studying him. Then she turns, looking behind them.

“Rip!” She raises her voice. “You’re sure we’ll be able to take him back to right about the same time?” Len continues to watch his younger self as she pauses. “It’s important.”

He can hear the captain step closer and stop.

“Yes, Ms. Lance,” Hunter says with a sigh. “We can.” Sara starts to speak again, but Len hears the rustle of the man’s sleeve as he raises a hand, and she stops.

“I did check.” The former Time Master sounds almost sympathetic. “With Omega protocols, the Pilgrim will choose times and places where the timeline is…more flexible than others. Less likely to disturb others’ personal timelines. So, those are also the places we should be able to return to with less chance of incident.”

After a moment, Sara nods and turns back around to face the monitor again. Rip is wise enough to leave them be, going about his business and quietly murmuring to Gideon in their pursuit of the Pilgrim’s next likely target. Leonard remains silent, still watching the equally silent boy in the brig.

Sara reaches out for his hand, then, and he…he flinches.

Maybe it’s that the past is far too much in the present, right now. That Leonard’s been studying the boy and seeing the scattered cigarette burns on his hands and the fading putrid yellow of a bruise on one shadowed cheekbone, feeling the echo of the anxiety he knows his younger self must be feeling. But whatever the cause, it’s a measure of how he’s changed that he immediately tries to figure out how to explain to Sara, to…to not quite apologize, but to try to make her understand.

Which is difficult, because he’s not sure he even understands himself.

But she’s already shaking her head in return, understanding in her eyes, and there’s no judgment there, none at all.

“It’s OK,” she says quietly. “It really is.” A pause. “Do you want me to stay, or can I go help Rip? Would you rather be alone?”

Leonard’s not sure how he feels, but he gives what he thinks is a sincere enough smile. “It’s OK,” he repeats her words. “Sooner we can get through this, sooner we can get…him….back home.”

Sara nods again, then rises, moving away. Leonard continues watching the monitor. He’s actually not precisely sure he wanted to be alone, but the complicated stew of goddamned feelings that this whole mess is stirring up has him unwilling to say so, and he doesn’t know…

That’s when Mick drops onto the seat next to him, giving a grunt of acknowledgement, even though he doesn’t look at Leonard as he does so. Leonard can’t resist glancing behind, seeing Sara pause in watching him and then giving him a firm nod as she sees the look on his face. No question, not really, who’d sent Mick over here to sit with him, when he couldn’t quite bring himself to accept her comfort, the comfort of a lover.

Because Mick is…Mick is safe.

It sounds absurd. Despite his friend’s own issues and flaws (and Leonard knows there are many), though, Mick is _safe_ , on a level that’s far more instinctive than logical. He has been since Leonard was 14, when he’d saved the younger, smaller boy and wanted nothing in return. Not the…sorts of _favors_ many would have expected. Not even a “thank you” or a promise of some sort of help. In Leonard’s world, where even at 14 he’d known that everything had a price, Mick had been a godsend.

(Which is one of the reasons the betrayal had hurt so much, so damned much. They’re getting past it, or trying, but it still stings. Maybe it always will. But somewhere, deep inside, his gut still recognizes Mick as _safe_. Completely illogical. But there it is.)

Mick, oblivious to Leonard’s inner thoughts (or pretending to be) studies the monitor, face expressionless. Then he grunts again.

“Yeah,” he says with a noise that might be a sigh. “I remember him.” He glances at Leonard. “What, six months from juvie?”

Mick knows perfectly well when Leonard had landed in juvie for the first time. “ ‘Bout that,” he drawls in return. “Funny, it wasn’t even one of Lewis’ poorly planned schemes. Just got caught shoplifting food one too many times and then got shoved in front of a judge who hated Lewis.” He snorts. “Didn’t know I hated him more.”

“I have her.” Rip’s voice is terse as he cuts in. “Everyone, strap in; Gideon call the others.”

“Already done, Captain Hunter.”

Leonard rises, even as he jerks his thumb at the monitor. “What about him?”

Sara turns away before Rip can even speak. “I’ll go and strap in in the brig, too,” she calls over her shoulder. “Someone should be there. Time travel is unnerving enough when you’re with other people.”

Leonard doesn’t get a chance to manage a “thank you” before she’s gone, down the corridor. That’s OK, though. He’s pretty sure she knows.

“Where are we going?” Raymond turns to look after Sara as she passes him, then holds out an arm to Kendra, who’s…well, waddling along gamely next to him. “And when? Who’s the Pilgrim after now?”

“You, Dr. Palmer.” Rip sits down in the captain’s chair, looking grim. “In September 1993, Ivy Town.”

Raymond stops dead in his tracks, then remembers and turns to assist Kendra, who’s doing pretty well, really, then sits down and straps himself in.

“I’m...12?” he manages “Then? Just about to turn 13?”

“You don’t _remember_ , Haircut?” Mick’s dry tone cuts in as he plops into the seat next to Leonard and Jax and Stein, arriving from elsewhere in the ship, take their seats. “Huh. The order...”

But something’s occurred to Leonard, as he secures himself as well. And while he’d prefer not to think about it, because this thought is brutal even to his cynical soul, it feels like someone needs to say it.

“If the Pilgrim takes out Raymond in 1993,” he says suddenly, “she takes out more than just Raymond. Doesn’t she?”

There’s a pause. Leonard can tell immediately from the look on Rip’s face that the captain (equally as cynical in his own way) has already thought of this. The others, except for maybe Mick, haven’t.

The noise the inventor makes at his words is . . . well, Leonard’s never been a huge fan of Raymond. (That’s his story and he’s sticking to it.) But that noise is one of the worst things he’s ever heard in his life.

Kendra puts a hand on her stomach, her mouth a thin, determined line. Raymond simply looks terrified. Jax swears quietly, while Stein utters what might be a prayer.

“Yes,” Rip says quietly. “And we’ll just have to make sure that doesn’t happen. Gideon!” He raises his voice. “Let’s make the jump.”

Time travel isn’t getting less stomach churning, but after the jump to Salvation, it seems like it is by comparison. Rip maneuvers the ship, frowning to himself.

“I’m getting as close as I can to where young Mr. Palmer is walking home from school,” he says. “Mr. Snart, you...ah...steal our next guest, please, while Mr. Rory distracts the Pilgrim? I believe she will target him while he’s on the outskirts of a somewhat less populated neighborhood.”

Raymond’s already on his feet. “I think I know where you mean,” he says, sounding both a bit numb and quite determined. “I’ll go too.”

“No.” Rip’s voice is definite. “The less you all interact with your younger selves the better.”

Raymond opens his mouth to argue, but Mick cuts in, his voice surprisingly gentle.

“We’ll take care of little Haircut,” he tells the other man. “Promise.” He turns away before Raymond can manage a response. “I’m still surprised she hasn’t gone after my younger self yet,” he comments, sounding almost annoyed. “I’m the one with all the training. You’d think…”

But Leonard, even as he stands up, is thinking furiously about that.

“Why would they want that?” he asks abruptly. “You spent...you spent a long time as Chronos, you said. You weren’t just chasing down Rip and us. Not all that time.”

Mick gives him an odd look, even as Stein, coming up beside them, makes a thoughtful noise. “No,” the former bounty hunter says. “Took out a lotta targets for them, over the years. Tougher ones than you nitwits.”

“Excuse me?” Jax cuts in indignantly. “Gray and I took _down_ your armored ass…”

Leonard isn’t deterred. “Then why would the Time Masters want to undo all you did as Chronos? That doesn’t make sense.” He pauses. “Hell...if they’d taken _me_ out as a kid, you’d never have come on this crazy trip, right?”

Mick snorts. “Damn right I wouldn’t have.”

But Rip’s had enough. “Mr. Snart, please stop trying to give us all a headache with...with meaningless speculation...and get out there and get young Mr. Palmer!”

He’s right about the goal anyway. Leonard lets it go.

For now.

* * *

Young Raymond is lost in the clouds as he wanders home from school by himself, abandoned by whatever sibling or friend might have been walking with him. Mick intercepts the Pilgrim before the assassin can get within a block of him, and Leonard uses the knockout device and hustles off with the unconscious boy over his shoulder.

It’s impossible not to think about Per Degaton. Because that kidnapping went _so_ well.

“So, where do we put him?” he drawls as he and Mick (who’s just slightly the worse for wear after tangling with the Pilgrim but smug that he’d held her off until Leonard had vanished and she’d fled) stroll back onto the bridge. “The hold?”

The adult Raymond isn’t there, but Kendra rises from where she’s sitting on one of the jump seats. The pregnant woman has a complicated look on her face as she studies young Raymond’s sleeping form. Leonard holds the kid steady as she reaches out and smooths the hair out of the boy’s face.

Is she thinking of her unborn son? Wondering if he’ll take after his father? Probably, he decides, shifting the boy. He could make a crack about hoping the kid takes after his mother, and maybe once he would have, but this doesn’t seem the time. Besides, Raymond isn’t here to hear it, and that would totally spoil the effect.

“Why not the brig?” Sara asks, entering the bridge from one of the corridors. Apparently she’d been close enough to hear his words. “Young you could probably use the company.”

She smiles a little as he gives her a look. “He tried to ignore me the whole time I was in there, but I caught him sneaking glances,” she says, stopping next to Kendra. “He may be scared, but he’s curious--which isn’t really surprising.”

“Yeah, well, in a few years he’s going to have a noted thing for blue-eyed blonds, so I’m going to blame you for that now,” he returns, making Sara and Kendra both laugh. (Mick’s long since wandered off to talk to Rip.)

“Maybe he’d actually talk to someone his own age,” Sara continues, though. “Make things a little less scary.”

Leonard glances down at the kid he’s carrying: well dressed, well fed, with nary a scar nor a serious worry in the world. The sort of pampered little prince young Leonard Snart is used to mocking his old clothes and the bruises he tried to hide. (Although, frankly, he can’t imagine Raymond doing that at any age.) “I don’t think that’s a great idea,” he murmurs, imagining his younger self’s reaction.

“Worried you’ll develop a thing for brown-eyed brunettes instead?” Sara asks archly, causing Kendra to snort in amusement.

Leonard rolls his eyes. “Nah. I was actually a late bloomer in that way.” He shifts the boy again. “Seriously, this kid’s heavy. Where do I put him?”

“The brig is fine, Mr. Snart,” Rip cuts in from across the room. “Ms. Lance and Mr. Jackson actually made it a little…a little homier while you were gone.” He chuckles a little. “Mr. Jackson, I think, is talking to Gideon about making a video game system or two to help occupy our young guests. And himself as well, I believe.”

Young Leonard had never owned a video game system, although he’d hid out from Lewis in a few arcades over the years. Adult Leonard shrugs uncomfortably, uneasy with the notion in a way he can’t quite define.

“These two are about as different as oil and water,” he says, hearing a bit of a defensive snarl in his voice. “I don’t think this will go very well.”

“Or as different as fire and ice?” Kendra murmurs, glancing over at Mick, who’s scowling at one of the ship’s monitors. Leonard frowns at her, but Sara shakes her head too.

“Two lonely kids far more intelligent than most of their peers?” she adds, folding her arms. “I don’t think they’re probably that different at all.”

He’s not up for fighting about this. “Sure. Whatever. Can I carry him in here with little me, or will someone else have to do it?”

Rip’s distracted, staring at the same thing Mick is. “You should be fine, Mr. Snart. You, ah, don’t look much like your younger self, so he’s not likely to recognize you. Just don’t…interact much.”

“No worries about that,” Leonard mutters. “OK. Let’s go, kid.”

Sara nods as he turns away, falling into step with him. “I’ll go, too. He seems to at least trust me a little.”

“No offense, Canary.” He doesn’t really know why he calls her that, not after everything--he faintly recognizes that it’s a distancing tactic and that’s probably not a good thing--but she doesn’t seem to mind. “But he doesn’t trust anyone. Trust _me_.”

 Sara hums a little, but she doesn’t explicitly agree or disagree. She does follow him to the brig, though, stepping around him when he freezes in his tracks at the sight of his younger self. The boy is still sitting awkwardly on the floor, despite the two beanbag chairs and the futon mattress that are now in the otherwise barren space, although he is studying a stack of books sitting a few feet away.

“Hey,” she says quietly to younger Leonard as the boy glances up warily. “Brought you some company.” She waves at Leonard and his burden. “Like you, we have to…to protect him for a bit. He’ll wake up soon.”

Leonard’s stepped forward, but he freezes again as his younger self looks over at him. Blue eyes meet blue eyes, and younger Leonard frowns, just a flicker. He pays attention to things, even at that age—it’s a survival skill, his older self knows—and he’s noted the newcomer’s odd behavior. Especially since he’s conditioned all too well to be wary around adult men, to expect blows and angry words.

The grown man’s stomach roils with nausea at the idea, and he takes a deep breath, trying to relax his own stiff posture. He takes a step forward, and young Leonard leans back, watching him. The boy’s eyes flicker to Sara and away, back to Leonard. He’s inexperienced enough that he hasn’t pegged her as the greater potential threat in the room, at least in terms of sheer skill at violence—or maybe she’d been right, and she had managed to adequately convince him she was trustworthy.

Suddenly, older Leonard is just tired of the whole business. He shakes himself, then slaps open the door to the brig, stalking in and dumping young Raymond onto the futon. Steadfastly, he ignores his younger self, turning to leave the room again as soon as he’d arrived.

Once he’s in the corridor, he breathes again. Behind him, he hears Sara speaking quietly, then her footsteps as she follows him. She doesn’t comment on his brusqueness, but for some reason, even the lack makes him lash out.

“Why are you babying him?” he growls, aware of how tense his shoulders are again, staring at the wall like it holds answers.

“Babying him?” Sara sounds perplexed more than angry. “Little you? How so?”

It’s the memory of David Jacobi, actually, that helps him start to get a grip. Of course Sara wouldn’t see anything wrong with basic human kindness to the kid, just like they’d treated young David back in 1958. But this isn’t the same; Leonard knows that far too well.

Still, his voice is harsher than he means it to be when he speaks again. “That kid’s barely known a moment of that type of kindness in his life. He’s not gonna know what to do with it.”

Sara knows him too well to take it the wrong way. She does fold her arms, though, regarding him.

“Well, that doesn’t mean I can’t try,” she says calmly. “This whole thing has to be bad enough as it is.”

But Leonard’s shaking his head. “No. That will make it worse. I….he…no one acts that way unless they want something.” Sara’s been through a lot, but she’d grown up as the much-loved younger child of a stable family, and she doesn’t _understand_.  “It’ll make him suspect you more, maybe even try harder to get away.”

There’s a flash of some understanding there in her eyes, then, but he’s bulldozing on, speaking quickly, trying to put it into words while he can still make himself talk about it. “He’s got to be tough,” he tells her, remembering 13, recalling how he’d learned, adapted, made it through. “Cold. Hard. Or he won’t survive. _I_ won’t survive.”

If there’d been pity in Sara’s expression, he’s not sure how he would have taken it. But there isn’t. There’s a thoughtful empathy, he thinks—but she doesn’t back down.

“And you think a few moments of kindness from one of his kidnappers will jeopardize that.” It’s a statement, not a question, really, but there’s definitely a question within the words.

“I don’t know.” Leonard feels his fists clenching. “I don’t _know_.” He gives her a glance that’s he’s aware is painfully helpless. “Juvie’s coming up. It’ll take all he has to make it through unbroken. He can’t expect any softness, any kindness. Any help.”

Sara considers him thoughtfully, but promptly speaks again. “Mick helped you.”

Leonard scrubs a hand over his face. “Mick was…unexpected. That’s almost the point. He...I...ugh...that kid I was didn’t expect that help. Didn’t look for it.” He sighs. “That’s why it made such an impression.”

Sara’s nodding slowly. “And he didn’t want anything in return, either.”

“No.”

 They watch each other a moment, and then Sara sighs.

“I’m not going to treat him as coldly as you seem to think we should,” she says quietly. “I can’t, Leonard. That’s _you_.” She continues while he’s digesting that. “But I won’t go all buddy-buddy with him, either. I suspect you’re right that he wouldn’t trust that.”

Leonard nods, knowing the expression is jerky. “All right,” he manages. “I just...can’t risk it.”

Sara shakes her head, but she doesn’t argue. She does, however, move over so that her arm brushes his as they start back toward the bridge, judging the amount of contact he’ll accept and even find reassuring.

He’s rattled enough to accept it...but it makes knowing that the boy back in the brig doesn’t even have that measure of comfort even harder.

And then they get to the bridge and find out the Pilgrim’s next target.

* * *

“This day just keeps getting weirder and weirder,” Mick mumbles, staring at the sleeping toddler whose head of shaggy brown hair is pillowed on Rip’s shoulder.

The captain gives him a look that is not without sympathy, shifting the boy in a gentle way that makes Leonard think that maybe he’s thinking of his own son—even though his young burden is actually 3-year-old Michael Richard Rory, snatched from his own bedroom in 1973 even as the Pilgrim entered the room.

The boy, woken by the chaos caused as Leonard had launched himself at the bounty hunter, had eventually cried himself to sleep after Sara had nabbed him, going out the window in a maneuver that’d left her with splinters from the tree she’d used to break their fall. She’s in the medbay now, picking them out and getting something from Gideon to prevent infection, but Leonard’s standing with the older Mick on the bridge, figuring that the moral support might be worth something, anyway.

He knows just how weird it feels, after all.

“Why can’t the Pilgrim just go back and try to...try to do it earlier?” Raymond asks, voicing something Leonard’s been wondering. “I mean, not that I’m trying to borrow trouble. But...”

“Because the Omega protocol calls for precision,” Rip comments. Leonard wonders if he even realizes he’s swaying where he stands, soothing the sleeping boy. “Multiple attempts from the Pilgrim could do irreparable temporal damage.”

“Which means she's only got one shot at killing each and every one of us,” Mick concludes.

“And we only have one shot to extract your younger selves from the timeline before she pulls the trigger.” Rip sighs. “Well,” he says, “the other two can more or less look after themselves, but we need to do something with young Mr. Rory here.”

He looks down at the boy, who’s drooling on his jacket. “A toddler loose on a time ship...” He swallows, hard, and the others try to ignore it. “Well. That’s excitement we don’t need. We probably shouldn’t put him in with the other two...”

Leonard snorts. “That me has a 3-year-old sister he’s essentially responsible for, remember?” he says, jerking his thumb vaguely in the direction of the brig. “He’d manage. Might even do him good, have something else to think about.”

“I can watch him too,” Kendra volunteers. “I feel like I’m sort of...just taking up space right now.” She looks down at her pregnant self, not without humor. “More space than usual.”

Rip actually smiles a little, then nods. “All right, well, let's find somewhere for him to continue his nap,” he says with a sigh. “Ms. Saunders, if you want to just keep an eye on him for now? When he wakes, we’ll see.”

Ray takes the sleeping mini Mick from the captain and, Kendra at his side (rubbing her stomach, Leonard notices), carries him toward their room. (The boy mumbles in his sleep but doesn’t wake.) They pass Sara on the way out. Leonard sees her do a slight double-take, but then she shakes her head, joining the others.

“Has Gideon figured out the Pilgrim's next target yet?” Jax asks as she does so.

But Rip’s frowning at one of the screens. “That's peculiar,” he muses. “Gideon, run another scan for the whereabouts of the Pilgrim.”

There’s a pause. “I'm sorry, sir,” the AI says. “The timeline shows no temporal distortions. I seem to be unable to track the Pilgrim.”

“That doesn't sound good,” Stein says, frowning.

“No, it's quite the opposite.” Rip surveys them, his mouth a straight line. “Without a way to track the whereabouts of the Pilgrim, she could target any one of you at any point in time.” 

* * *

This whole thing’s been disconcerting, but Sara almost feels like the wind’s been knocked out of her at that. She stares at Rip as the captain tries explaining things like “temporal wake” to them, but it’s hard to concentrate.

It would be so easy for the Pilgrim to take her out, she thinks, a trifle numbly. So many pivot points. So many times it would just take one little change. The Pilgrim wouldn’t even have to attack directly. The Gambit, the Amazo. Lian Yu, the League. The Pit...

Suddenly, she feels warm fingers wrap around hers, holding firmly but gently, a lifeline, a tether. She glances in surprise at Leonard, who’s taken her hand despite all the people around them, and his gaze is just as steady as his grip.

She tightens her hand on his (for all his alter ego, his hands are awfully warm, or maybe it’s just that hers are rather cold right now) and meets that gaze, holding on to both for all she’s worth. None of the others, Rip or Jax or Mick or Stein, seem to notice, but then, they have their own issues with this, and now the captain is raising his voice, getting her attention.

“Gideon, prepare for multiple time jumps,” he says, entering something into a console. “Plot points here, here and here.”

“My _birthday_?” Jax says, staring at him. “Why are we...”

Rip cuts him off. “The only way to ensure you're not harmed in your past...”

But Stein gets ahead of him. “…is to abduct ourselves as newborns, thus removing ourselves from our future timelines.” The professor looks more intrigued than disturbed. “It's brilliant.”

“It's morally questionable,” Leonard mutters, his hand tightening on Sara’s. She glances at him again, studying his frown as he watches the captain, wondering what’s going through his head.

“It's suicidal,” Mick snaps back at Rip, folding his arms. “If we take too long in getting them home...”

The captain gives him an almost helpless glance. “Then history is altered,” he says quietly. “There won't be a home to go back to.” He looks at Jax, Stein, Sara. “You'll disappear from the minds of everyone who's ever known you.”

Sara stares at him. “You mean, even as babies? Will they remember us being stolen? Or…”

But Jax cuts in, horror in his voice. “You mean, my own mom won't even know me?”

Stein closes his eyes. “My wife.”

Mick opens his mouth but then closes it, glancing at Leonard. The two men share a look, then both glance at Sara.

She doesn’t even know what to say.

* * *

Sara is silent, but Leonard can see the realization in her eyes. Her parents, her sister, all her friends, they’d forget about her. Hell, he knows enough about her past to wonder what would happen to the Green Arrow and Star City itself if there is no Sara Lance. Would her sister have gone on the Gambit instead? Would Queen have become the Arrow?

 Which leads him, then, to wondering again why the Time Masters, a group dedicated to preserving the timeline, would really want to mess with all that fallout. What is he missing here? What are they all missing?

But now it's time to strap in, and he decides he’ll chase those thoughts down later.

He doesn’t.


	7. How You Looked the Night We Met

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another chapter set during "Last Refuge" in this 'verse. Many thanks to LarielRomeniel for the beta!

The jump to Dec. 25, 1986, is first, and Rip brings the Waverider in through a gentle snowfall as he gets as close to the Starling City Hospital as possible. He dispatches Mick and Ray to go kidnap little Sara before asking the older version to go check on the boys in the brig—a way, Leonard recognizes, to distract her from the mission that’s taking place.

Leonard falls into step with her (a touch hastily, he’ll admit, after he hears Kendra’s voice rise from the crew quarters, where young Mick had apparently gotten quite sick after their jump). If Sara realizes that, though, she shows no sign.

“So, I stopped by the brig after the medbay before. Young Ray had succeeded in getting young you to play video games with him,” she says after a moment or two, squeezing his hand before letting go.

Leonard snorts, grateful for the distraction himself. “I bet that went well.”

“It did, actually.” She laughs a little. “Apparently, he lost steadily for the first few games, then started figuring things out and has been kicking little Ray’s ass ever since.”

Is it weird, that he feels a rush of pride at that? “Ah,” he drawls. “Baby Palmer complaining to you about it?”

Sara’s lips twitch. “Actually, he was thrilled. Thinks his new buddy is awesome.” She glances over at him. “He was chattering up a storm, and young Leonard was watching him with a mix of...I think it was disbelief, horror and amusement, all wrapped up in one expression. Pretty sure I’ve seen that same expression on your face.”

"Sounds about right.” _Two lonely kids far more intelligent than most of their peers_ , Sara’s voice says in his memory. He shakes his head.

“Mr. Snart? I...have an inquiry.”

They both glance upward at that as they slow, nearing the brig. “Yes, Gideon?” Leonard drawls, wondering. That sort of reticence isn’t like the AI.

There’s a pause. “It would not affect the timeline whatsoever if I give young Mr. Snart some vitamin supplements and…and get that sprained wrist healing a bit better,” the AI says quietly. “Would that be acceptable to you?”

Leonard stops despite himself. Even Gideon’s noticed both his younger self’s malnourishment and the injured wrist caused by a particularly rough jerk by Lewis, he thinks, wondering why the idea bothers him so much.

“I...yeah, that’d be fine,” he says after a moment. He can feel Sara’s eyes on him.

“Please bring him to medbay, then. I will compile the supplements.” Gideon’s tone is now businesslike, brisk. “It would be helpful if you would do so. I would like a blood sample.”

For an AI, Leonard thinks sometimes, she gets people more than, well, some people.

* * *

Young Leonard had still been regarding young Ray with the same bemused expression when they arrived, although the latter had pretty much bounded to his feet to greet them and the former had tensed, moving slightly away. For a moment, Sara had worried that the boy was going to panic when they asked that he go with Leonard, but when the older man makes no threatening moves—and, in fact, displays little interest in him—he warily agrees. They leave her behind with young Ray, who’s turned his attention back to the wonders of Xbox.

Or at least, he pretends to be until they depart.

“Ma’am?”

Sara reflects that this is where her life is right now. Being called “ma’am” by 12-year-old Ray Palmer. She turns with a sigh. “Don’t call…”

But the boy is standing there, looking at her with big, worried eyes, and whatever he’s concerned about, Sara caves. “What is it?”

Young Ray glances around, as if making sure no one will overhear him, but since young Leonard is headed to medbay with his older self, Sara isn’t even sure why. Then he takes another step closer and lowers his voice.

“That boy,” he says, nearly in a whisper. “Lenny?”

_Please don’t tell me he stole something. “_ Yes?”

“I think…” Ray gulps. “I think someone’s been hurting him.”

Sara blinks. He’s so earnest and so worried, and for a moment, she’s just not sure what to say. Giving herself time to think, she pauses in front of him. “Yeah? Tell me.”

Encouraged, Ray continues. “He’s got lots of bruises. And his arm hurts him.” He nods at Sara’s expression. “He eats like he’s been starving, too, and I saw him tucking some bread away. Like to save it for later? He doesn’t get enough food, I think.”

Not for the first time, Sara thinks it’s lucky for Lewis Snart that he’s already dead. She tries to keep her more violent thoughts from her face, though. “That’s pretty perceptive,” she says.

Young Ray shrugs. “I saw an afterschool special on it once,” he tells her seriously, and Sara has to hide a smile. “You said you were protecting us. Can you help him?”

Oh, that hurts. Both the knowledge that they can’t, that they’ll have to put young Leonard back where they found him—and the fact that she has to lie to young Ray now, or destroy all that youthful trust and optimism. (Which is probably just a little off anyway, considering that they’re effectively his kidnappers.) Sara tries to make her expression reassuring, but she’s not sure how well she manages.

“We’ll do everything we can,” she tells mini Ray. “OK?”

The boy studies her, then nods.

“He wouldn’t say where he’s from,” he says with a sigh. “I wish it was Ivy Town. I don’t have anyone to play video games with. An’ he’s real smart. Most of...most of the kids I know, they think it’s not cool to be smart.”

He smiles suddenly, then.  "I bet my parents would help. If I told them he needed a place to stay. You know?”

For a few seconds, Sara stares into space, imagining what _that_ would do to the timeline. Then she gives young Ray Palmer a wistful smile, because he’s just so...Ray...and the world needs more of that.

“Yeah,” she tells him, unable to resist ruffling his dark hair. “I know.”

* * *

Baby Sara safely onboard, they jump again, to Ivy Town in March 1950, while both Leonards are still in the medbay. The older version watches as the younger weathers the jump with merely an annoyed headshake and goes back to drinking the vitamin-laced hot cocoa that Gideon had whipped up. (It’s a little frightening just how well she knows their predilections by now. There are even mini marshmallows.)

Leonard sighs, then takes a sip of his own cocoa. The boy wouldn’t touch the drink unless he did, too. Understandable, really. He’s also pretty sure his younger self has something—a table knife?--up his sleeve as well.

Young Leonard had been quite dubious about the medbay sleeve Gideon had requested he put his arm in, but he’d eventually complied, and now the AI tells him he can remove it. While she doesn’t say so, older Leonard knows that this means the damaged ligaments and blood vessels have been healed, good as new.

Pity that it’ll just happen again after he gets home. Sooner or later, it will happen again.

The boy sits up on the chair, then glances at the man, curiosity and caution warring on his face. And before he even thinks about what he’s going to do, Leonard’s speaking to him, saying the words that have been rattling around in his head.

“It’s not your fault.”

The words come out in a monotone. Young Leonard starts at them, although he tries to conceal it. His eyes narrow, and he watches the older man intently, still holding himself like he’s ready to lash out or try to escape at any moment.

It hurts to watch him. But Leonard can’t help himself. He needs to do this.

“Lewis beating on you,” he tells the boy quietly. “The names, the curses, the...the abuse. Your mom leaving. Not your fault. Any of it.”

Unsurprisingly, younger Leonard draws back even more, and his expression hardens. His older self sees him teeter between alarm and anger for a moment and then go with the latter.

“How do _you_ know?” he spits out.

Leonard studies the kid long enough for the anger to fade and trepidation to appear on the young face. Talking back to Lewis, after all, had been a guaranteed way to get a new bruise or three. Then he merely shakes his head.

“I know,” he says. “Trust me, kid. I know. And I can’t tell you how, and I don’t know if you’ll even remember any of this, but it’s not your fault.” He gets up from his seat from the bed. “And I just needed to tell you that.”

Young Leonard is still watching him stiffly, but after a moment, he gets up too, although he keeps his distance. With a sigh, his older self turns away, heading for the door. Then he pauses.

He’d been telling the truth when he said he was a late bloomer. Blame all that malnourishment and the distraction of keeping himself and Lisa alive. But eventually he’d started noticing some of the other people around him in a different way, even though he still preferred to keep his distance. (Hell, for the most part, he _still_ does.)

When young Leonard had first showed signs of having a crush on a neighborhood girl, Lewis had actually clapped him on the back, making a suggestive comment or two that had made Leonard feel ill. But when it’d been a boy (the handsome son of one of Lewis’ “associates”) next, and Lewis had gotten an inkling...well.

His father had hated him before that. But it’d gotten a lot worse then.

Leonard abruptly turns back to the boy, who freezes in his tracks.

“Other things aren’t your fault either—who you like, what you feel,” he says, looking the kid in the eye. “And they’re _not_ faults, no matter what Lewis says. They’re just you.”

And then he heads back toward the brig. After a moment, young Leonard follows.

* * *

Rip and Mick retrieve little Martin Stein from his birthplace by the side of an Ivy Town road, and then they all head to Central City in 1993, to the very hospital where Leonard was born—21 years earlier, which Jax gives him no end of teasing about.

It won’t be until later that Sara and Leonard will learn about what happens to Jax himself there. They have their hands full with other things at the moment.

Rip, whom Sara suspects of getting payback of sorts for Kendra (and Ray) having the temerity to get pregnant, has promptly turned both baby Sara and baby Stein over to the newlywed parents-to-be. Which means that, to get the proper amount of attention necessary for a toddler on a time ship, the other younger charge on the Waverider needs to go elsewhere.

As older Mick says, the brig seems appropriate.

Mini Mick stands in the middle of the converted brig, looking as surly and uncommunicative as the older version—but with both arms wound around the neck of a fluffy brown teddy bear nearly as big as he is. He’s directing the scowl, at the moment, at young Ray Palmer, who’s grinning at him with the nervous energy of someone who’s never spent much time around a younger child but is beyond excited to do so.

“Awww,” he says, kneeling on the floor. “You gotta teddy beaaar! What’s his name?”

Little Mick stares at him, then looks up at the adult Leonard and Sara with the clear WTF look only babies and toddlers manage quite so well. Sara bites back a smile and shrugs. Leonard rolls his eyes and gives the kid a smirk. Mick looks back at Raymond, nonplussed.

Approaching, young Leonard rolls his eyes in a gesture that looks so much like the older version that it’s downright uncanny, then sighs theatrically (also uncanny).

“You don’t need to talk to him like that, Raymond,” he says, the first time Sara’s heard him speak. “He’s 3. He understands you.”

Young Ray gives him a doubtful look. “I’m just trying…”

“You’re very trying,” young Leonard tells him drily, a comeback that has Sara turning away and closing her eyes to try to hold back a laugh. “Hey, kid. Michael?” He glances at his older counterpart. “That’s his name?”

* * *

This is just plain weird.

Leonard pummels his memory to recall if Mick’s ever mentioned any childhood nicknames. “Or Mick.”

“Mick.” Young Leonard nods. “OK. Hey, Mick?” The toddler eyes him skeptically. “You hungry?”

Jackpot. The boy’s eyes brighten.

“Cookie?” he asks hopefully.

But young Leonard shakes his head. “Something else first. Apple slices? Or carrot sticks?”

Young Mick visibly sighs. But he slings one arm around his bear’s neck and nods, dutifully following young Len over to the snacks Gideon had provided them with earlier.

Older Leonard, watching, is forcibly reminded of how many times he’s had to remind older Mick that beer is not a food group. A smile touches his lips as he takes a step back, fairly confident that young Mick is in good hands.

“Raymond?” he says, jerking his chin at the bear.

“Yeah.” Sara darts him a smile. “His heart’s in the right place.”

“That’ll make it easier to remove,” Leonard mutters, but he sends her a smile in return. “OK. Well…”

And Mick—older Mick—comes in behind them.

Leonard turns, as does Sara, but Mick lays eyes on the youngest boy in the brig and grunts.

Then he presses the heel of his right hand to his forehead. “What the hell….”

Leonard, who suddenly remembers that moment in Orange City when he’d acquired a set of new memories, stops. “You OK?”

Mick nods, but he keeps his hand pressed to his forehead a long moment before he sighs and frowns, glancing up.

“I remember that bear,” he rumbles. “I _remember_ it.” He closes his eyes. “It burned. In the fire.”

Leonard pauses, then claps him on the back, exchanging a glance with Sara. “C’mon, partner,” he says. “Gotta beer with your name on it.”

* * *

They don’t know where they’re going now. Sara’s not exactly comfortable with that. But Rip, a particularly obdurate look on his face, had ignored everyone, this time, setting his course and sticking to it until they erupted into the air over the big country house in a landscape and timeline none of them know.

“We’re here,” the captain says, getting out of his jump seat, jaw set.

“Where is _here_?” Leonard immediately snarks back.

“Come. I’ll show you.”

* * *

Outside the ship, it’s not much clearer. It looks like they’re at some sort of country estate, timeless in its own fashion, but with nothing visible but some hills beyond the grounds.

“Again, where is here?” Leonard mutters, glancing around uneasily. He doesn’t like not knowing where…and when…he is. He’s pretty sure he’s not alone, too. Stein is frowning, and Kendra looks quite uncomfortable, rubbing gently at the curve of her abdomen. Sara glances at him—she knows him all too well—but doesn’t comment.

“We need a safe harbor to keep your younger selves,” Rip returns distractedly, moving onward.

But then a woman in a long blue coat emerges from the house, striding toward them. She smiles, and Leonard frowns. And Rip stops.

“I’ve been waiting,” the woman says. “It’s good to see you.”

Rip glances around, uncomfortably, then back at her.

“It’s good to see you too,” he says. “Mother.”

* * *

The parlor is the sort of semi-formal, partly for-show place that Leonard remembers from his grandparents’ home, long ago. This strikes him as a little odd, really, given that there are children running about all over, but that’s just one odd thing in a lot of odd things here.

The woman in the blue coat, whom Rip had introduced as Mary Xavier, had promptly settled them there and fetched all the fixings for tea, including a silver teapot that Leonard’s thief’s eye had pegged as worth rather a bit of money. He’d declined, perching carefully on a window seat, but many of the others had accepted.

Sara hadn’t either, but she had asked Mary for directions to a restroom, which the woman had promptly provided. Leonard, who knows Sara’s need to know her surroundings (and establish an escape route) is as strong as his own, watches regretfully as she vanishes. He should have thought of that.

He’s watching (and listening to) everything else here, though. The kids are laughing, the sort of carefree laughter that can’t be faked, at least not convincingly. They don’t shy from the woman, or even quiet as she shouts at them to take their boots off. Good signs.

One skinny boy, all floppy brown hair and coat that’s a trifle too big, darts into the room in a clear bid for some of the refreshments Mary Xavier has assembled for the guests. Leonard’s eyes narrow. But for all the boy’s furtive movements and slightly underfed frame, he doesn’t seem more than slightly disappointed when the woman catches him and his ill-gotten gains.

“Oi!” she cries, intercepting the boy and turning him about. “Out you go!”

Leonard tilts his head. Interesting.

“So, this is where Rip plans on keeping our baby selves,” Jax says quietly, looking around. The kid’s seemed uneasy since they’d picked up his younger self. Distracted. Leonard sympathizes.

Stein glances at him. “If all goes according to plan,” the older man says, “we'll only be here for a few minutes, then presumably never remember.”

Unexpectedly, it’s Raymond who says it: “When's the last time anything went according to plan?” He takes a careful sip of his tea, looking at Kendra, who laughs softly.

“I don't think there was a last time,” she says, looking down at herself. Leonard frowns as he notices her…flinch?

But Rip’s back now, looking distracted and a bit unsettled himself, and he surveys them with nostalgia clear in his eyes.

“I really would sit up if I were you,” he says, pointing at Jax. “She'll kill you if she catches you slouching.” He turns away, but Leonard thinks he catches a fond expression on the captain’s face. “Don't be fooled by appearances. That woman is as tough as nails.”

Leonard idly inspects a vase on the windowsill. “Funny how you never mentioned having a mother,” he drawls, thinking about what the former Time Master had said before about the group and its thoughts on family and connections.

Mary Xavier herself, however, has returned, teapot in hand. “Adoptive mother,” she informs him. “Now, can I interest any of you in some more tea?”

Several of them accept, and Leonard listens intently as Mary provides them with several interesting little tidbits about Rip himself (Michael, eh?) and the Time Masters. At one point, Sara reenters the room and takes a seat, meeting Leonard’s eyes thoughtfully, and he knows she’s found nothing suspicious, no reason not to believe this place won’t be safe for their younger selves.

Kendra keeps shifting uncomfortably. Leonard’s just about to say something about it when she exclaims, a look of horror crossing her face, and levers herself to her feet.

“I think…I think my water just broke,” she says with embarrassment, looking downward. “Your chair…I’m sorry…”

And then it seems like everyone’s talking at once, then, except for possibly Raymond, whose eyes widen and whose jaw drops as he freezes.

But Mary Xavier doesn’t. She sits the teapot down, nodding to herself as if this is a common occurrence in her household, and steps forward.

“OK, then,” she says briskly. “We’ve having a baby.” She looks at Raymond, who’s looking…well, the best word is probably terrified. “You! You’re the father?”

The inventor blinks at her. “Um. Yes?”

Leonard can’t help it. He snorts. Mary actually throws him a lurking smile but keeps most of her attention to Raymond. “All right. Get her downstairs to the infirmary.” She motions to the other doorway. “The stairs are right there; there aren’t many of them.”

As Raymond starts to escort the gingerly moving Kendra that way, Mary glances around the rest of the room. Her eyes light on Sara, who’s watching her friend with sympathy. “You, Ms. Lance.” Sara looks at her, a question in her eyes. “Please come with us.”

Mary turns away, then, as if she has not a doubt that she’ll be obeyed. But Sara’s eyes widen, and she puts her hands up. “Me? Hey, just because I’m a woman doesn’t mean I know a _thing_ about having babies.” She glances at Leonard, looking a bit desperate. He shrugs. Neither does he.

The older woman, however, turns back around and studies her. “League of Assassins,” she says crisply. “Correct?”

Sara frowns. “Yes. But…”

“Then you won’t faint at the sight of blood. And I need another set of hands.” Mary turns around again, heading for the stairway, clearly assuming that she’ll follow. Sara throws Leonard a helpless look and stands, but Rip does too, giving her a sympathetic smile.

“I’ll come as well,” he says. “I was there when Jonas was born. The least I can do is help with our father-to-be.”

Mary nods, glancing about. “The rest of you, make yourselves at home,” she orders. “This will probably be a while, and you’re safe here. Enjoy the reprieve.”

The others look around at each other. “But,” Stein says a little helplessly, “our teammates…”

Mary Xavier nods to him. “It will be fine,” she says, a certain secretive smile creeping across her features. “I am, after all, a Doctor.”

* * *

Leonard may know nearly nothing about having babies, but he does know they come on their own schedule. He helps Stein, Jax, and Mick move their younger selves to the house, younger Raymond excited and curious, younger Leonard cautious and curious—and younger Mick still grumpy and rather recalcitrant. Earlier, the babies had been moved to a nursery in the building, where Mary apparently has helpers. He’s not real clear on the organization here.

A few older children take the younger Legends in hand, and Leonard notices his own younger self glance back to study him a few moments before following the others. Young Raymond had stopped to wait for him, something that Leonard finds oddly touching, although he will never, _ever_ tell older Raymond that.

He explores the house a little after that, finding nothing all that unusual. There’s one door in the very top floor that’s locked and he could almost certainly pick it, but his instincts are telling him that, one, this place is OK and, two, he might not want to see what Mary Xavier considers proper security measures. He leaves it be.

He goes to the kitchen then, but while Mick, Stein and Jax are there, they tell him he’s just missed Sara, who’d ducked in for a snack and to grab something for Raymond. Things are apparently proceeding as they should—which is all he really wants to know.

Stein and Jax choose to stay at the Refuge overnight, but Leonard and Mick head back to the Waverider. Mick heads to his room with a grunt and a nod, while Leonard ambles slowly toward the one he’s sharing with Sara. This whole thing—the Pilgrim, young Leonard, the threat of their families forgetting them—it has him a bit thoughtful.

How annoying.

He tries to read a while, but eventually nods off with the book on his chest. Still, he starts awake immediately when Sara appears in the doorway after an indeterminate amount of time, her eyes tired and her expression serene. Leonard blinks at her, propping himself up on an elbow, and her expression shifts to a weary smile as she crosses the room.

“Alexander Raymond Saunders Palmer,” Sara says with a sigh, dropping onto the bed next to him. “Seven pounds, 11 ounces, 21 inches long. Shock of dark hair and a really good set of lungs. Mom and son both doing well.” She stretches, arms over her head and back arching up off the mattress. “Apparently no harm done from being conceived in 1958 and born...whenever this is. And wherever. That’s going to be a fun birth certificate to acquire.”

Leonard considers that, feels a faint bit of concern he’d barely even acknowledged subside. “Mazel tov,” he says, as if to himself, but Sara hears him and smiles, turning over to lie on her side next to him.

“I can’t believe there are ever younger siblings in this world,” she says with another sigh. “Although they’ve got a full medbay suite here, despite how old-fashioned the place looks, that still doesn’t mean it was a picnic. Kendra was really grateful for the pain blockers.”

“How’d the Boy Scout do?”

That gets a chuckle. “He passed out when the baby crowned,” Sara informs him. “And if you don’t know what that means, I’m not telling you. You’re welcome.” She continues as he chuckles too. “Rip caught him, and he woke up pretty quick, but you can hold that over his head for a while if you want.”

Leonard smirks despite himself. “Nah. I got plenty of ammo, I don’t need that one.”

Sara sighs again, but now the sound is almost wistful. “He’s ecstatic,” she says quietly. “They both are. I don’t know that...that’s a thing I’d ever want, but I’m happy for them. One more little spot of light in the world.”

And as a final line to that long, stressful, complicated day…well, there could be far worse.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mary Xavier is a Time Lord. Fight Me.


	8. I Recall Your Laughter and Your Smile

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Third one for "Last Refuge." With an added scene by popular demand. ;) Many thanks to LarielRomeniel for the beta.

Leonard isn’t there when Sara wakes. A glance at the console nearby shows her that it’s quite late, nearly noon by ship’s time, but given how late she got in, she’s going to refuse to feel bad about it.

Still, time to get up now and see what’s going on. And check on the newest little Legend.

Gideon reports that everyone else is over at the house. Mary Xavier—whom Sara has come to respect a great deal over the past 24 hours—had moved Kendra and Ray, with little Alex in a bassinette, into a more normal bedroom next to the infirmary/medbay. Sara actually doesn’t run into any of her other teammates on the way there, but as she raps cautiously on the slightly ajar door and then sticks her head in at Kendra’s quiet “come in,” she finds one of them.

Kendra is sitting up, looking weary, but smiling, and Leonard is standing next to her, next to the bassinette. The empty bassinette.

Because the crook is holding the baby.

Sara stops in her tracks. Leonard glances up and nods to her before looking back down at the bundle in his arms. He’s holding little Alex rather expertly, if Sara’s any judge, the baby’s head supported in the crook of one arm, his other arm cradling the little one’s body, and he’s moving a little as if to soothe the child. It’s completely incongruous, the thief in his black leather jacket holding the baby in his pale blue blanket so calmly.

After a minute, though, Kendra actually giggles and Sara blinks, recalled to the moment.

“Did your ovaries just explode?” her friend asks shrewdly as Leonard smirks at her and tiny Alexander waves a fist in the air.

Sara just gives her a look. “How are you?” she says, moving a little closer. “And where is Ray?”

Kendra stretches a little. “I’m good,” she says. “Sore. Tired. Par for the course, from what I remember, and a lot better than it could be.” She sighs. “I have any more kids, I want to be sure to have a medbay setup nearby.”

“All _that_ and you can make yourself think about more?”

“You’d be surprised how quickly it fades. Even without the pain blockers.” Kendra shakes her head. “Probably a survival-of-the-species thing. But as far as Ray, Mick and Stein, of all the strange pairs, dragged him off to get something to eat.” She laughs a little. “He wouldn’t put the baby down. And when he finally did, Mr. ‘Mind If I Hold Him?’ over there showed up.” She waves a hand at Leonard. “This kid is going to be spoiled.”

“Ah, but you can’t truly spoil a newborn.” They all look around as Mary Xavier, Rip on her heels, strolls briskly into the room. “And how are you doing, Ms. Saunders?”

While Kendra and Mary talk, Rip takes a step toward Leonard, eyes fixed on the child as if he wants to take the boy himself, but Leonard’s chin goes up, as if daring the captain to try. Rip stops, and Sara closes her eyes, smiling. She’d already known Leonard had a soft spot for kids, but she hadn’t known it extended to infants.

Mary soon ousts them all from the room so she can examine both Kendra and the baby, and Leonard returns the child to the bassinette, joining Sara outside. She studies him as they climb the stairs toward the ground floor, wondering.

“Didn’t know you were quite so fond of babies,” she says eventually, as they emerge into the parlor.

Leonard gives her a tiny smile. “Well. Can’t say I’ve had much of a chance to interact with one in a good long time.” He shakes his head. “But I remember clearly when Lisa was born,” he says quietly as they head for the kitchen. “Holding her on her first day home from the hospital.” He glances at Sara. “Figured I’d do anything to protect her. Still would.”

Sara reaches for his hand, squeezing his fingers before letting go. “You’re full of surprises, crook.”

“You know it, assassin.”

* * *

Maybe it’s because they both still have little Alex on their minds. Maybe Sara just can’t resist seeing her younger self, since everyone else has seen theirs. But they drift next toward the Refuge’s nursery, where young Sara, Stein and Jax are being housed.

Leonard finds it a little odd (and unnerving, actually) that he still hasn’t seen any other adults (besides the Legends, if they even count) at the Refuge, and this is, again, no exception. Stein, though, is standing there, holding baby Jax, a rather paternal expression in his face as he gazes down at his partner-in-Firestorm’s younger self. The other two babies are sleeping quietly, but Leonard sees Sara’s gaze drift to the bassinette that holds her infant self, then determinedly away. They’re still supposed to avoid their younger selves, although many of them have rather ignored that edict. (Although none quite so much as Leonard had.)

Stein looks up and smiles at them, then, shifting young Jax to one arm and holding a finger to his lips in a reminder of quiet. Then he steps over the one empty bassinette and gently puts the sleeping boy down before stepping back and turning to them.

“Ms. Lance, Mr. Snart,” he says in a low tone. “This is quite surreal, is it not? All the potential and promise innate in our younger selves…” He waves a hand. “…all here in this one unassuming building. Astonishing.”

Leonard reflects that at least the older man is including the entire team in that assessment of promise. It wouldn’t always have been the case. But he’s not going to point that out.

“Little you doin’ all right, professor?” he drawls instead, folding his arms and glancing toward the bassinette that holds baby Martin Stein. “Had an interesting beginning, didn’t he?”

The scientist chuckles. “Indeed. It went from rather an amusing family story to something else altogether, hearing Captain Hunter and Mr. Rory tell the tale. But, no harm done.” He glances over too. “I was…am…apparently a rather resilient child.”

Small Stein chooses that moment to wake up, however, making an annoyed noise and kicking his feet, which are now encased in tiny green booties. Sara takes a step toward him, then glances toward the adult version in question. The professor waves a hand, smiling.

“I’m heading back out now,” he says. “Perhaps I will go visit our littlest Legend. Or...” The smiles flags a little. “Talk with Jefferson some more. My attempt at a good deed seems to have gone...rather amiss.”

He’s gone before either of them can ask, and Sara and Leonard share a glance before baby Stein makes another noise that’s distinctly pissed off. That seems to disturb baby Sara, who wakes with a vaguely irritated gurgle, then draws in a breath and squalls as only an upset newborn can.

The adult Sara pauses in collecting young Stein, glancing at her younger self, and Len makes his decision quickly, trying not to think about the oddness of the moment. He walks over and collects the baby efficiently, cradling her in the crook of his arm and humming to her, wondering when she’d last eaten and how that’s handled here. Don't infants this young have to eat frequently? He sort of remembers that.

The baby quiets more quickly than he’d expected for all her ire, staring up at him with blue eyes that are quite focused for one so young. She appears to be frowning and Leonard lifts an eyebrow at her, amused at what seems to be the familiarity of the expression. Even little Sara is a spitfire.

He glances up at older Sara, then, and see her watching him too, as she tries to get small Stein settled. After a moment, the corner of her mouth ticks up, and she shakes her head.

“The crook and the assassin are the two soothing the babies,” she says wryly. “Who’d have thought it?”

“Speak for yourself. I’m good at everything.” Unable to hide his smile, Leonard looks down at little Sara, who’s still watching him with a small “v” between her nearly invisible brows. She waves a hand and he catches it, letting her wrap those tiny fingers around one of his. “Good grip.”

“Yeah, well, watch it. I’m told I was a grumpy baby—and I raised hell as a toddler.” Sara laughs a little. “Well, they say second children are the troublemakers.”

“In my experience, that’s certainly true.” Little Sara’s eyes are drifting shut again. She’s still holding on to his finger tightly, and Leonard finds himself loathe to put her down, for all the oddness of the situation. He studies the baby’s face, looking for the beginnings of the woman he loves in the soft newborn features, wondering suddenly how her blond fairness would mingle with his own ancestry, what kind of child...

Holy hell, where did _that_ come from?

Clearing his throat suddenly, he steps over to the bassinette, putting the infant down gently and tugging his finger away. Little Sara sighs in her sleep, but lets him, that hand falling in a loose fist to lie next to her cheek. Leonard turns away hastily to watch older Sara put the now-sleeping baby Stein back too, then reaches for a change of subject.

“Shall we, ah, go grab something from the kitchens here,” he asks, extending an arm to her, “before it’s back to replicator food?”

Sara regards him, her lips quirking again, and Leonard has a feeling he hadn’t hidden his expression quite quickly enough. But whatever her thoughts are, she lets them go, taking his arm. “We shall.”

* * *

After Kendra and the baby have received a continued clean bill of health from Mary Xavier, Rip calls a team meeting in their room. It’s crowded, and Stein and Leonard squabble over holding Alexander until Ray pulls rank as the proud new dad and takes his son himself. He sits on the bed by Kendra, and the others quiet as Rip surveys them.

Finally, the captain sighs, but it’s not a put-upon noise, for once.

“This really worked out, for once, as best as I could hope,” he says. “I had planned to ask Ms. Saunders to stay here for the remainder of her pregnancy and the birth of her son, but since young Mr. Alexander had his own ideas…” He nods to them, actually smiling. “I will admit, this is not something I’d ever foreseen in my pursuit of Vandal Savage, but I am glad for your happiness.”

“Hear, hear,” Stein murmurs, while Ray beams and Kendra (Sara notices) studies the captain with the expression of a woman who’s waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Rip clears his throat, then. “So. Here’s the best plan I can come up with now.” He starts to pace, managing only a step or two before he has to turn. “Ms. Saunders and the baby will stay at the Refuge for now. Mum…Mary has agreed.” He pauses. “And we will return for them. Soon, for us. In approximately a year, for them.”

Ray stares. Kendra, who seems like she’s expected something like this, nods. Mick and Leonard both frown, exchanging glances, and Jax starts to say something before Stein nudges him.

Rip continues. “Ms. Saunders will have to continue training to get back into, err, fighting trim. And then…then we will continue our quest for Savage. The boy will stay here temporarily under Mary’s watchful eye.” He nods again. “It’s not perfect. But…”

Ray has found his voice, however. “I’m not leaving my wife and son here alone,” he protests.

Rip gives him a sympathetic look. “They won’t be alone, Dr. Palmer.”

But the new father is shaking his head vehemently. “I won’t miss it,” he says. “This is my son, too. I need to be there, I need to _help_. And all the firsts…” He looks down at baby Alex. “His first word, his first steps…” Ray looks back up then, determination in his eyes. “I’m not going to be that kind of father.”

Mick murmurs something Sara can’t quite hear, but she sees what almost seems to be sympathy in his eyes. Leonard’s watching the other man, too, then glances back at Sara, and that is definitely sympathy. She nudges his arm with her own.

But Rip, although he looks a touch resigned, is nodding again. “I really can’t say I didn’t expect that. Very well, Dr. Palmer, you stay here as well.”

Ray nods firmly, then opens his mouth to say something else.  But Stein is speaking up now, and everyone’s attention goes to him.

“How will that…I mean, won’t they be able to…” the physicist says slowly, as if working something out. “Eventually, one would hope, we’re going to be coming back for our younger selves. Later, for us. Earlier, for those at the Refuge. What if…what something’s different?” He sighs and clarifies. “Say, if one of us doesn’t return. Dr. Palmer and Ms. Saunders will find out before we return for them. Won’t that create a paradox of sorts?”

Leonard makes a thoughtful sound next to her, and Sara tries to work the knot out. She’s gotten a little used to the oddities of time travel, but it’s still capable of giving her a headache. However, Rip’s speaking again, and she gives it up to listen.

“There is a cottage on the outskirts of the grounds,” the captain is saying to Ray and Kendra, “and I think it would be a fine place for a young family.” He sighs. “We will have to keep you in…a state of some ignorance. Mary is aware of this.”

“Shouldn’t be hard for you, Raymond,” Leonard snipes, but it’s clear his heart isn’t in it. He’s frowning, clearly disturbed by some piece of this. Sara studies him thoughtfully.

Kendra sighs. “All right, then,” she says, looking at Ray. “I don’t have a better idea. I wish I had Sara to train with, though.”

Rip smiles again. “Well. You might be surprised by Mum. Ask her. You’ll see.” He shakes his head. “Good luck, Dr. Palmer, Ms. Saunders. I’m going back to prepare the ship for takeoff,” he says, turning for the door. “The rest of you, please return within the next 15 minutes.”

But when they do…everything has changed.

* * *

“Gideon has intercepted a trans-chronal beacon,” the captain tells them in a tone that’s so carefully blank that it can only scream “trouble.” Then he takes a deep breath. “Gideon, show them.”

A video flickers onto one of the bridge screens: The Pilgrim, staring grimly ahead.

“This message is for Rip Hunter,” the bounty hunter says. “I'm going to make this very quick and very simple.”

And then the picture changes.

Even if Sara hadn’t seen a photo of Lisa Snart before, it’s clearly labeled—and the way Leonard sits forward in his jump seat, tensing, would give it away.

“If I can't find you…” the Pilgrim starts. Sara takes a step toward Leonard. But then the picture changes again, to a very familiar photo. A younger Sara, a younger Laurel…and their father. “Quentin Lance,” says the screen.

Sara stops in her tracks.

The picture changes again: Clarissa Stein. Sara, as if through a haze, can hear Stein’s intake of breath.

“…I can find those you love.”

Another change: Ray and a smiling dark-haired woman.

“Anna Loring,” says the caption.

And then another dark-haired woman, also smiling, in a photo that’s clearly older, sepia-toned.

“Diane Rory,” it says.

Leonard swivels quickly, staring at his partner. Sara looks, too, the anger, fear and adrenaline in her own heart only compounded by the knowledge that they’re all in this boat.

Mick just stares.

“That’s my mom,” he says, in a tone that’s so stunned it barely sounds like the gruff career criminal—or bounty hunter—they’ve known. “But…”

“The Pilgrim clearly pulled people from all over our timelines,” Leonard says when Mick’s words simply trickle off. “If she could…”

But then the video of the bounty hunter is back, and she’s hauling someone else into the screen with her, and…

“Dad!” Jax cries, as the Pilgrim holds a gun to his father’s head.

“All of them will suffer and die because of you,” the Pilgrim says coldly. “Your family, friends, anyone you've ever cared about. Unless you surrender your younger selves to me.”

Rip draws a breath. “So she can erase you all from history,” he murmurs.

But the bounty hunter’s message continues. “If it's of any comfort, you won't feel a thing,” she says. “As for your loved ones, I cannot promise the same thing.”

The screen goes blank. Rip hits the table in frustration, taking a step backward. They all stare at him—and then at each other.

* * *

Somewhat to Leonard’s surprise, it’s the professor who breaks through his own distraction first. “Someone needs to tell Dr. Palmer,” Stein says, turning toward the captain. “His fiancée…”

Rip turns back around. “Dr. Stein, I hardly think…”

“No, you don’t,” the physicist says, a clapback Leonard would probably appreciate more if he wasn’t dealing with his own circling thoughts.  (What age is the Lisa the bounty hunter captured? And Sara’s father…the one from 2016 Star City? A younger version? If…)

But Stein’s continuing. “The Pilgrim has a woman he loved…and he needs to know that,” he tells Rip. “Wouldn’t you want to?”

The captain hesitates, then nods. Stein hurries off the ship, presumably toward the house, to tell Raymond that the bounty hunter has his late fiancée, who’s not late at the moment, although he’s currently married to and has a newborn son with another woman. Because that’s not going to be awkward.

Leonard looks toward Mick, but the other man has backed up to the wall, a blank look on his face as he stares at the now-dark screen. Jax is sitting on a jump seat, looking distraught. Sara’s rubbing her hands up and down her arms in a characteristic gesture of quiet unhappiness. She paces toward Leonard, eyes meeting his.

“This is…” she says quietly but doesn’t seem to know what else to say.

“Yeah.”

He doesn’t really know what to say either.

Does the Pilgrim have adult Lisa? Last he knew, she was out of town, trying (she said) to turn over a new leaf. He’d left a message for her, just in case, but she might not even have gotten it yet.

Or is it the girl he remembers? The helpless baby, the toddler who’d followed him on stubby legs, the scared and wary preschooler she’d been when he’d first gotten out of juvie. The preteen who’d just wanted, with a desperate enduring passion, to be “normal,” or the teenager who’d realized they’d never escape their father’s legacy and devoted herself to trying to live “down” to it?

And then Stein’s jogging back onto the bridge, and Raymond’s on his heels, the inventor grim-faced in a way that Leonard’s rarely seen him before.

“I want to take her _down_ ,” he says fiercely, coming to a halt. “Then I’ll come back to the Refuge. But I can’t let her do this.”

Rip nods to him. There’s an expression on the captain’s face that’s different, too. Resolve? Calculation? A combination? Leonard frowns.

“Strap in for takeoff,” the former Time Master says shortly, taking his own seat. “Once we’re in the timestream…I have a thought.”

What can they really do but listen? And Rip’s as good as his word for once, hopping out of his seat as soon as they’re on an even keel in the sea of green.

 “Gideon, I take it that the Pilgrim's transmission included a carrier frequency through which she can be contacted?” he asks, raising his voice.

“Yes, Captain.”

“Hail her,” Rip says in a voice that has more than its own share of anger. “Please.”

“What are you planning to do?” Stein asks quietly.

But then the Pilgrim is there, on the screen, and Leonard feels both fear and rage rising in a tidal surge, although he struggles to keep both under wraps. He might acknowledge feelings more these days, but this isn’t the time or place to let them go. Sara moves toward his side, Mick to his other, and at least there’s that.

“Captain Hunter,” the woman says in acknowledgement.

Rip steps closer to the screen. “Look, I'm gonna make this easy.”

“I already have,” the Pilgrim cuts in curtly. “The lives of your team's nearest and dearest for their younger selves.”

But the captain’s not taking the crap, for once. “And I'm going to counter that demand with an offer of my own,” he grits out. “I will surrender myself…” He holds out his arms. “…if you spare the lives of my crew and their loved ones.”

Leonard lifts his head in surprise, and the others do the same. He’s already thinking furiously, though. It’s an interesting…

”…gesture,” the Pilgrim says, dismissively. “But…worthless. My directive is to eliminate your entire team, not just you.”

Rip tilts his head. “Yes,” he says, and it’s almost a hiss. “Well, I'm not talking about me now. I'm offering you me in the past.”

For the first time, Mick’s head jerks up and he stares at the former Time Master. Leonard’s eyes narrow.

“Rip Hunter before he became a Time Master,” the captain continues. “Eliminate him, and this team will never have been.”

Never have been.

Leonard turns almost involuntarily, looking at Sara, who’s staring at the screen. If Rip never forms the team…

The Pilgrim stares back at Rip. All Leonard’s instincts tell him she’s taken by surprise as well.

“If this is some kind of trick...” she starts.

Rip cuts her off this time. “It's no trick,” he says, something like scorn in his voice. “Enough people have died at my expense. Gideon will send you the location.”

And then he cuts the transmission and turns away.

It’s rather a nice little fuck-you to the bounty hunter, but Leonard doesn’t feel capable of appreciating it right now.

“Hunter!” he says, raising his voice. “It occur to you that if you never form this team, that changes a _hell_ of a lot for some of us!?”

No distraction for a restless crook looking for something new. No second chance for a lost assassin looking to find her way back to being a hero.

If they ever meet at all, it’d probably be as enemies. And all the things they’d changed in 1958, all the lives…

Raymond makes a slight noise and Leonard is reminded that this would change even more for him. Hell, there’s another new life at stake altogether.

Rip had stopped in his tracks, but he’s still facing away, shoulders slumped, silent. Sara takes a step forward, her own eyes narrowed. “Rip? I think that’s a pretty good question.”

“I’d answer it if I were you,” Raymond says, and damned if the Boy Scout doesn’t actually sound threatening.

And something else has occurred to Leonard. “You said before, that removing you, a former Time Master, from history would be ‘quite dangerous’ to the timeline. What changed your mind? What makes you think the Time Masters want that when they didn’t before?”

Rip’s shoulders heave in a sigh and he turns around.

“I know that this goes against the grain for you, Mr. Snart,” he says quietly. “But trust me.”

It’s Stein who answers, though. “You’re playing with lives here, captain,” the professor says. He sounds more tired and resigned than angry, but there’s steel in the words.

Rip looks at him. “You think I don’t know that? But I _do_ have a plan. And I can’t tell you what it is. Not yet.”

The captain stares at his crew for another long minute.

“Trust me,” he says again. “What choice do you really have, right now?”

And frankly, Leonard has no response to that.

* * *

It’s just as well that the trip is a very quick one. Sara thinks that maybe she should try to get a moment with Leonard before they arrive, before they could…they could lose part of their lives. Part of her life she’s not willing to lose, not at all, three months on this ship and nearly a year in 1958, a grasp on the blood lust she didn’t have before, the memories of friends made and a thoroughly unexpected lover who’s brought a part of her back to life that she thought was forever dead.

But neither is she willing to lose her father, or Leonard’s sister, or any of the others. She sighs, watching Rip hold a quiet-voiced conversation with Ray, who still looks pissed at the former Time Master.

Leonard’s leaning against a jump seat next to her, and their arms are touching, as if he needs her to know he’s there. It’s a tiny gesture that’s nonetheless large, coming from a man who so notoriously is shy of contact and PDA, and Sara relishes it as they wait.

Mick ambles over, then, stopping in front of them. The big man has seemed almost…introspective?... during this whole thing, from Leonard’s younger self to his own toddler self, and now his mother’s capture by the Pilgrim. Sara knows, from bits and pieces, that Mick’s father had been an abusive asshole (although not, perhaps, on the lines of Lewis Snart), but she knows nothing about his mother, save that the woman had died in the fire teenaged Mick himself had accidentally started.

It must be incredibly hard, having her here, after so long. But that’s not what Mick’s here to talk about now. He stops in front of Sara, clearing his throat.

“Blondie,” he says almost formally. “Been an honor. Knowing you. Um. M’ sure it didn’t always seem like it, but it was.”

It’s the sort of thing that you just have to take as intended. “Thanks, Mick.” Sara manages a smile. “You too.”

Mick nods. Then he meets Leonard’s gaze, holding it a long moment. They won’t lose each other, at least, if Rip’s plan doesn’t work—or will they? Sara thinks. They’re not the men they were before. They might as well be two new people.

But after a moment, Mick nods again, and Leonard nods back, and that’s that. Sara shakes her head as she watches Mick walk away, then looks up at Leonard.

He’s staring after his partner, and there’s a muscle ticking in his jaw. He doesn’t look back down at her as he speaks.

“I’m not going to say it.”

Sara lifts an eyebrow. “Say what?”

“Anything.” Now he glances down at her. “If you don’t already know it, no point in saying it now.”

Sara nods. She leans against him as they watch Rip finish whatever he’s saying to Ray and turn to look at the rest of them.

“I love you too, crook,” she murmurs, and hears his quiet hum in response.

And then the captain is beckoning them over.

And then it’s time to go.

* * *

Leonard hates waiting. As it turns out, that’s precisely his role in this plan of Rip’s, at least to start. Because of course it is.

At least he’s waiting with Sara, crouched with her behind some sort of storage containers in this defunct Time Masters outpost. A few more minutes in each other’s company.

Oddly, he’s not expecting this particular plan of Rip’s to go haywire, and he’s not sure why. It’s still nagging at him, that the Time Masters would want to cancel out all the actions of one of their greatest bounty hunters. And now, those of a Time Master himself? He hadn’t missed that no one had answered any of his questions about that.

It just doesn’t make sense.

They watch Rip, Mick, Stein and Jax walk into the cavernous former…warehouse? It looks like a warehouse. Leonard can hear their voices, but not their words, not at a normal conversation volume. But he recognizes Mary Xavier when she walks into the echoing space from another direction.

And he recognizes the boy with her.

“I saw that kid back at the Refuge,” he says quietly to Sara. “That’s little Rip?”

Sara gives him a surprised glance. They watch the woman exchange a few words with the captain and the others…and then the Pilgrim enters too, crossing the floor toward them.

“Where's my dad?” Jax asks, raising his voice, as Mary Xavier withdraws. While the Pilgrim answers, they can’t quite hear her, and Leonard tenses again, uneasy with the lack of information. But there’s not much he can do, not right now, and they continue to wait, watching, as the two sides exchange words.

At one point, the Pilgrim looks Mick dead in the eye, and Leonard’s reminded that they’d been colleagues, once, of a sort. An odd thought. Then the bounty hunter scans the room, and Sara and Leonard freeze. But she doesn’t see anything, apparently, and turns back to Rip, holding up some sort of device.

Then James Jackson appears next to her. The man, still in his fatigues, staggers, and Jax takes a step forward. But the kid stops himself, and Rip says something to his younger self…and the boy starts to walk toward the bounty hunter.

“Remember, we wait for Ray's cue,” Sara says quietly as Leonard tenses again. They can both see the blue mote that’s following the Time-Master-to-be, lighting on the kid’s jacket.

The Pilgrim and the young Rip exchange a few words…and then Raymond explodes into full size, yelling “Now!” and aiming his blasters at the bounty hunter.

She freezes him, but Sara and Leonard are already moving in tandem, Sara with her bo in her hand and Leonard with gun primed. Sara rolls to avoid a blast, but Mick joins them from the other side, firing, and Leonard fires too.

The Pilgrim, in the middle, freezes both blasts, fire and ice, and then throwing her arms wide, sends them both hurling back. Leonard lands awkwardly, and by the time he’s back on his feet, Firestorm is there too, ablaze and attacking. And then Sara’s next to him, her bo in one hand and a knife in the other, and Mick’s back up and firing and so is Leonard. Rip has his fancy revolver in hand and…

The Pilgrim has them all frozen.

She turns slowly, watching them, and Leonard really wants to wipe the look off her face, the slightly smug expression that says the bounty hunter thinks she’s won. And maybe she has, because while Rip said he has an ace in the hole, Leonard has no idea what it is, and no idea where.

“I was willing to proceed in good faith,” she says, barely audible over the crackle of the cold gun in his ears. “Now you'll watch those closest to you die.”

Leonard’s trying to get just enough freedom to say something rude, when young Rip does him one better. That skinny kid, ignored by all of them, the same kid he’d watched try to snitch food back at the Refuge, pulls out a knife with a wicked blade and buries it without ceremony in the Pilgrim’s back.

He says something to her, but Leonard’s already straining against her control, trying to break it. Then the boy stabs the bounty hunter again, and the Pilgrim knocks him backward, but they’re free, they’re all free, and Sara sweeps the boy out of the way as all their weapons and powers hit the Pilgrim at once.

Satisfyingly, there’s not much left after that.

* * *

Sara watches Jax go to his shaken father, even as Mary Xavier sweeps back in to collect young Rip, who doesn’t seem all that fazed by the experience. The woman gives Sara a slight sly smile as they pass, and Sara has an odd feeling that, maybe, Rip had had more than one ace in the hole.

Then she looks at Leonard. Her lover gives her a small smile, but he’s not the sort to do anything effusive, not here and now, anyway.

Later. They have later.

“That's you,” Mick says, faintly marveling, as he watches young Rip leave with his adoptive mother.

Rip shrugs. “Yeah,” he acknowledges with a sigh. “I was a cutpurse from the age of five. Starved more than I ate.” He shakes his head. “I knew what I'd do if she tried to harm me.”

Leonard makes a faint noise of…something. Impossible, to ignore the similarities there. (Though Sara knows perfectly well both men will. Acknowledging them would be far too close to admitting they do have some respect for each other.)

“Lucky for us,” he drawls, “you didn't forget your roots.”

Rip sighs. “Believe me, Mr. Snart,” he murmurs, turning away. “I've tried.”

* * *

The Pilgrim’s ship isn’t precisely hidden, and whatever the bounty hunter’s flaws, she’d told the truth about their loved ones. They’re all there, angry or scared or some combination thereof but also healthy and whole, and Rip and Mary have them ushered onto the Waverider quickly. The Time Masters almost certainly have a means of tracking the other ship. Best to leave it as soon as possible. A pity, Leonard thinks.

They go back to the Refuge, after that (although Leonard never does find out to his satisfaction how Mary Xavier got young Rip to the meeting point). He also never finds out if Raymond speaks to his former fiancee or if he leaves the past in the past-- but the other man heads back to the house with barely a murmur of farewell before his year at the Refuge. Well, his wife and son are waiting for him.

Leonard himself contemplates looking in on his younger self—and baby Sara--again, but...he’s said what he can say. Time to let it go.

And Lisa is on the Waverider.

Despite the photo of adult Lisa the Pilgrim had used when contacting them earlier, it’s not the older Lisa she’d picked up. It’s the 7-year-old girl he remembers, all skinny arms and knobby knees and pigtails, who’s curled up on the bed, eyes wide and wary. She’s in the room that’d once been his, not the one he now shares with Sara, and she shrinks away as he appears in the door. Leonard winces.

“Hey,” he says, gentling his voice and keeping his distance. “It’s OK. I know it’s been weird. But we’re taking you home.”

Problem is, home’s not a haven either, and Leonard knows it. But what else can they do? Time, he realizes now, isn’t so much a straight line as it is a cat’s cradle, and too many things might change.

Lisa’s picked up her head a little, eyeing him. “Who was that lady?” she asks in a voice that’s not much louder than a whisper. “She said...she said she wanted to hurt Lenny.”

And Lenny, to her, is the 17-year-old big brother who’s probably back in juvie right now, the gawky kid just starting to get his height, hair still dark and just barely long enough to curl, the kid who still thinks he might be able to be something other than a criminal. Not this stranger older than her father, hard eyes and short, silvered hair, gun at his hip and ice in his soul.

At least she still remembers him at all.

Leonard takes a deep breath and lets it out. “She didn’t,” he tells his baby sister gently. “We stopped her.”

Something in his voice makes an impression, he thinks, and Lisa relaxes just a tiny bit more. “You did?” she says hopefully. “Is he home now? Is he here? Can I see him?”

Leonard has no idea precisely when the Pilgrim had plucked her from. “You will...in time.” If they don’t put younger Leonard back quickly, how will that affect her? He thinks of the times he’d gotten between Lewis and Lisa. Will she even be...

He can’t chase that thought. He can’t, not now. Not and still keep moving.

“Can I get you anything?” he asks instead. “Coloring books? Would you like to watch TV?”

Lisa perks up. “Cartoons?” she asks hopefully. They’d been a rare treat at home, for when Lewis wasn’t around. Leonard browses briefly through the list Gideon presents him with and pulls up “Beauty and the Beast,” leaving his sister behind with one last, regretful glance. He’d love, he’ll admit, to give her the hug their adult selves tend to eschew, but she wouldn’t react well to that from an apparent stranger.

Then he goes to check on Sara.

Of course, she’s not in their room. But her father is, sitting on the bed and taking off his shoes, glancing up as Leonard halts abruptly in the doorway.

“Who the hell are you?” Quentin Lance asks, eyes narrowing. He looks...well, frankly, he looks younger than Leonard, at whatever point in time the Pilgrim had pulled him from. Maybe even Sara’s age.

Leonard blinks at him. “Ah,” he manages. “Sorry. Just...looking for Sara.”

He takes a step backward, watches Quentin’s eyes dart around the room. There are unmistakable signs that his adult daughter isn’t the only resident, including Leonard’s parka draped over a chair and a pair of his boots by the desk.

Sara’s father looks back at him. Then he shakes his head.

“Well, I just took what they tell me was an amnesia pill,” he says, sighing and stretching out, resting his hands behind his head. “So, whoever you are, and whatever you are to my little girl, just...treat her right. And just maybe, we’ll manage to get along one of these days.”

Leonard can’t help a faint chuckle. “If I didn’t, she’d have long since kicked me to the curb,” he says quietly. “Or gutted me. Or both. Probably both.”

Quentin Lance chuckles too.

“That’s my girl,” he murmurs as he closes his eyes.

Leonard leaves with alacrity.

* * *

Sara had actually been looking for Leonard, to warn him that her dad was in their room. But as she sees him beating a hasty retreat from that corridor, she stifles a laugh, pausing until he joins her and they both head for the bridge.

“How's your sister?" she asks as they fall into step. She’d rather like to meet Lisa Snart, but the young girl she’d seen had been confused enough without adding more to the mix.

“She's a tough kid,” he drawls, then flicks a glance at her. “Just met your dad.”

Sara’s lips twitch. “He should be sleeping off that amnesia pill from Rip."

“Think he is now.” Leonard shakes his head, but he declines to say more about the encounter. Sara lets it go.

Rip’s speaking to Jax as they join the others, and Sara hears the word “Mogadishu.” Leonard pauses, but Sara turns away, noticing Mick sitting in a jump seat, watching her. Taking a deep breath, she strolls over.

“I gave it to her,” she says, leaning on the table next to him. “The amnesia pill. You sure you don’t want to...”

Mick makes a noise that’s part sigh and part grunt. He won’t meet Sara’s eyes.

“What would I say?” he says, looking downward. “Make sure you have working smoke detectors? Get out while you still can? Hey, look at what a...a monster...your little boy turned out to be?” He shakes his head. “If I didn’t already want to take the Time Masters down, I would now. Didn’t need to revisit any of this shit.”

Sara dares enough to reach out and put a hand on his shoulder. “You’re not a monster, Mick.”

But Mick Rory looks up at her then, and the pain in his eyes negates anything he’s ever said to her about not doing feelings.

“I killed my parents, Sara,” he says simply. And what can she even say to that?

Even if she’d found something, though, time’s up. Rip’s standing at the holotable now, looking around, and Leonard joins them, leaning on the table next to Sara as the others gather too.

“Time, the history from which your younger selves were removed, is beginning to set... as is evidenced by the change in Clarissa's memory,” Rip says, motioning to Stein. “It’s only a matter of time before it spreads to the others as well.”

Jax takes a deep breath. “Okay,” he says. “So how long do we have till these changes stick?”

“No one knows,” Mick rumbles, getting to his feet and moving to Leonard’s other side.

The captain’s nodding. “Which is why—after we put our guests back where and when they belong _and_ after we retrieve Dr. Palmer and Ms. Saunders--we need to move swiftly to locate Vandal Savage if any of your lives are to be restored to normal,” he concludes. "Fortunately, there is one place in time that we know Savage to be.”

“You said he conquered the world in 2166," Mick observes, and Stein frowns.

“You also said it was too dangerous to strike at Savage while he was at the height of his powers,” the physicist points out.

Rip gives him an unhappy smile. “That it is,” he says, then takes a deep breath. “But with your younger selves removed from history, we have quite literally...run out of time.”


	9. How You Made Me Feel So at Ease

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Now, on the "Leviathan" chapters! This one was very interesting both in terms of what changed with my in-series canon and the oddities and unexplained things a serious rewatch gave me. I also continue to try to write the badass Kendra I wish we'd seen. Hope you enjoy! 
> 
> Chapter 10 will be posted Friday or Saturday. Many thanks to LarielRomeniel for the beta.

Putting the sleeping Lisa back in her bed in the house on Handley Avenue is one of the most difficult things Leonard’s ever had to do.

Not logistically. Lewis isn’t even home, and it’s not like any of the neighbors pay any attention to the goings-on here, unless it’s loud enough that they’re annoyed. Hell, Lewis shouldn’t be leaving a 7-year-old home alone like this, but no one cares.

And her big brother, the only one who does care, the one who should be protecting her, is in juvie. Another bad seed. Another apple who didn’t fall far from the tree.

That same big brother, decades older and, he hopes, at least a little bit wiser, stands there a few moments, looking down at her, at the old yellow blanket that barely covers her. Then he reaches down, pulling a new blanket from the bag at his feet, one that will at least keep her warm, pink and slightly sparkly so that Lewis won’t take it even if it is thick and soft. He drapes it over her, smiling a little as she curls into it with a murmur of pleasure. Small comforts are still comforting.

She won’t remember anything, Gideon had assured him quietly, with an element of sympathy that Leonard wouldn’t have thought an AI was capable of. Then she’d directed Leonard in the assembly of a sort of care package for his sister, things that would provide those small comforts without being overly noticed by Lewis or overly capable of affecting the timeline in any way. Leonard, whose guilt is choking him, accepts the help gladly.

Now he tucks the bag next to Lisa, a backpack that she can use for school, sturdy but nondescript so that Lewis won’t notice, filled with small items. Granola bars that are halfway healthy. Colored pencils, on a whim. Regular pencils, for school. Hair ties. (He’d noticed her fraying braids, which she’d obviously painstakingly done herself, were held by rubber bands.) Soap, pink and candy-scented, the sort of thing a little girl might delight in. Matching shampoo. Bubble gum he remembered she likes. A small flashlight, suitable for reading under the covers. A pair of shoes in her size, scuffed artfully by Gideon’s design so that Lewis shouldn’t notice they’re new.

So little. So much.

Leonard looks down as his baby sister one more moment.

_Jerk_.

_Train wreck_.

And then he turns and walks away.

* * *

It takes less time than expected, to drop their loved ones off in the times from which the Pilgrim had taken them. The whole thing had been unsettling, especially for Jax and Mick and Ray, who’d been confronted with people long dead and mourned. Stein had had to deal with the reality that his wife was beginning to forget him, and Leonard had had to put his little sister back in a situation he’d have given nearly anything to get her out of.

By comparison, Sara knows, she’d been lucky. She’d gotten a hug and a precious “Proud of you” from her dad before he’d taken his amnesia pill, forgetting the Waverider and his abduction. They’d put Quentin Lance back in his life with barely a ripple.

She glances over at Leonard, who’s slumped next to her in his jump seat, his eyes distant. And beyond him, Mick, who’s scowling at the floor.

Yes. Lucky.

The Refuge, a year later, looks no different from when they’d left it, at least not from overhead. Rip carefully takes the ship over the main house and lawn, crossing the expanse of green to the edge of a wooded area, then sets it down.

When the hatch opens, the entire remaining team is standing there on the ship, looking for the teammates they’d left behind a mere day ago, for them.  Sara sees Ray first, the look of mingled pleasure and regret on his face. Then Kendra, her expression similar but her smile unmistakable. They look no older at all, she thinks.

Then she sees the boy holding their hands.

Alexander Saunders Palmer isn’t a baby anymore, or at least he’s no longer a newborn in arms. He’s a sturdy-looking young toddler, dark-haired, with Kendra’s dusky complexion. He’s staring at the Waverider, wide eyed, barely stable on his chubby legs, wearing miniature blue jeans and sneakers and a small shirt with a dinosaur on it, like any toddler and not the son of two time-traveling heroes.

On Sara’s right, Rip sighs, then starts down to greet them. The others follow him. Sara pauses a moment, glancing at Leonard, who’s frowning at the scene for some reason. Then he shakes his head and looks at her, and they follow the others.

Mary Xavier, as if she’d know exactly when they’d come back—and probably, she had--emerges from the cottage behind Ray and Kendra. She nods to Rip, but remains standing back, her face carefully blank.

Sara looks back at her friends, wondering.

Rip takes a deep breath, then nods. “Dr. Palmer. Ms. Saunders. You’re looking well.”

Ray sighs, glancing around. “Good to see you guys,” he says, a touch of humor in his tone. “Well. Sort of.”

Kendra looks at Sara. “Has it really just been a day?” she asks a little wistfully. “For you?”

“Just about,” Sara tells her. “So…a year?”

They nod. “It was Alex’s birthday yesterday,” Ray says, looking down at his son. “Right, buddy? Birthday cake and ice cream?”

The boy is looking around at the newcomers, brown eyes bright and interested. To Sara’s slight surprise, after just a moment, Leonard goes down to one knee to put himself more on the child’s level. Alex studies him, then lets go of his parents’ fingers and takes one wobbly step forward, then another, crashing into the former thief’s knees.

Leonard, surprise in his eyes, makes a startled “oof,” catching the boy, who giggles. Giving the rest of the team the sort of look that promises payback if they say a single word, he swings Ray and Kendra’s son up into his arms, handing him back to his father.

Ray wraps his arms around the child, holding him tightly for a minute before whispering something into his ear, something that makes little Alex chortle. Then he hands the boy to Mary Xavier and sighs, picking up a bag that’s at his feet, packed and waiting.

Sara feels like she’s watching something too personal, too painful, for an audience. She looks away, catching Leonard’s eyes, and they share a look. She wonders if he’s thinking of Orange City, too.

“Do you have anything else you need to wrap up?” Rip asks the couple quietly.

Kendra shakes her head. “No. We knew you’d be here today,” she says. Then she steps forward, brushing Alex’s hair off his forehead, giving him a kiss and stroking his cheek before she picks up her own bag. Mary nods to her, and Kendra nods back before turning away.

“Let’s go end this,” she says, looking around. Then she casts one last long look back at her son, turns and walks into the Waverider. Ray does the same.

Sara takes a deep breath and follows.

* * *

Just before he goes through the Waverider’s hatch, Leonard looks back. Something’s pulling at him again. Something he’s missing. Something _off_.

Mary Xavier is standing where they’d left her, holding little Alex, who’s chewing on his fingers, totally unaware of the danger his parents are flying into. But Mary’s eyes are on Leonard.

There’s no expression there, really. Just that direct gaze. But…her lips are moving. Just slightly.

She’s saying something, and Leonard’s eyes narrow, trying to make it out.

“Len?”

He glances around, seeing Sara waiting for him in the corridor, a question in her eyes. With a nod, he takes his own last look back, then goes to meet her.

But his mind is working overtime.

Why would Rip’s adoptive mother be telling him…’pay attention?’

* * *

They know they’re going to be flying into a war zone, but it’s still jarring when they…fly into a war zone.

When the Waverider doesn’t meet whatever standards are in place for aircraft over 2166 London, the response is swift and violent. Some sort of artillery fire brightens the clouds around them, and they’re all shaken about roughly as Rip and Gideon take evasive action.

Sara closes her eyes briefly, but the turbulence is too reminiscent of the Gambit, even after all this time, and she opens them again. Better to remind herself where and when she is, even for all its own strangeness and danger. She glances over at Leonard, who’s sitting next to Mick, and sees him watching her. But he doesn’t say anything, and neither does she.

“We're gonna need to find a safe place to set down, Gideon,” Rip says tersely as the ship makes an especially stomach-churning swoop and a flare of light outside signals a particularly near miss.

“I don't believe there are any safe places, Captain.” Gideon might almost sound snippy, if she didn’t also sound so distracted.

There’s a little more back-and-forth that Sara tunes out in the interest of reminding her stomach (and her brain) that she’s not on the Gambit, but eventually Gideon reports that they’ve slipped under the artillery fire, and Rip instructs her to set down on the outskirts of the city. He bounds to his feet before they’ve even landed and crosses the bridge with a nervous energy, Sara thinks, that isn't so different from her own attempts to distract herself from anxiety and memory.

Three days until his family dies. So close, and so _very_ far.

Sara isn’t always a fan of Rip’s choices (and, she knows, neither is Leonard) but that has to be devastating.

“I realize your family is in jeopardy, but perhaps some deliberation..." Stein is saying as Leonard moves over to join her silently, and they share a glance—but only a brief one, as the captain rounds on the older man with a swiftness and asperity that just aren’t Rip’s usual demeanor.

Devastating.

“We really don't have the time, Martin!” the captain says, with an edge of anger in his tone. He scrubs a hand over his face, visibly trying to regain his composure, then takes a deep breath. “According to Gideon, Savage is going to be out in the open tonight... vulnerable.” He scans them. “Now, in order to capture him, I require the services of...”

Mick glances from side to side at Sara and then Leonard. “A killer, klepto, and pyro?" he asks.

“Bingo.”

* * *

Thanks to the fabrication room, uniforms for Savage’s army are easy to come by, complete with insignia showing them all in possession of moderate rank: high enough to be above the common cannon fodder, low enough that the true higher-ups wouldn’t be expected to know them on sight.

Leonard and Sara both are used to observing and then fitting in to a variety of environments, and Mick’s used to following Leonard’s lead. (And probably, Sara figures, used to a bit of subterfuge himself from his years as Chronos, although he doesn’t talk about that.) Presumably, Rip’s Time Master training has given him the same skills. But what matters, ultimately, is that they all manage to integrate themselves with Savage’s forces fairly seamlessly, winding up together at a decent vantage point in the ranks.

Just in time for the man himself, the one they’ve been chasing all this time, to appear, and hold forth on battle and victory and how they are the ones chosen to “make things great again.” The usual prattle of any sort of despot. Sara shakes her head.

She feels Rip tense to her right and resists the urge to glance at him sympathetically. If it must be tough to know when and where they are, it must be that much tougher to have Savage nearly within reach but be unable to kill him. Sara doesn’t have nearly the reasons Rip does, and she’d still like to rip out the smarmy bastard’s throat.

There’s a helmeted figure at Savage’s right hand, and a young woman, oddly, at his left. Sara studies her, frowning. The other woman’s face is calm, almost serene, despite her surroundings. Her blond hair is braided up in a fashion not unlike Sara’s own, and her dark outfit seems to incorporate light armor. A fighter, from the way she holds herself. Bodyguard? No, that’s not right. But she's picked out many others, all with firearms, and the hundreds of soldiers all around also certainly wouldn’t take it well if the four newcomers suddenly tried to kidnap their boss.

Sara knows, without false humility, that she’s good. She’s not _that_ good.

“Here we stand at the edge of history,” Savage thunders, interrupting her thoughts. “But as tempting as it might be to celebrate our previous victories, it is only for the next and final battle that you will be remembered!”

Oh, blah, blah, blah. Sara shakes her head again. “There's no way we can grab him here,” she says quietly to Leonard, who’s standing at her left, also regarding Savage with a thoughtful expression. She’s sure that Rip, on her other side, hears her, but he doesn’t comment.

"Not with an army standing between us,” Leonard agrees, but Mick interrupts him before he can finish the thought.

“Shh, I'm trying to listen to this guy,” he grumbles. “He gives a hell of a speech.”

Rip darts a disturbed look at him, but Sara knows what Mick means. _They_ know who and what Savage is, but if they’d been fed this line for years…well. Who knows what they would have believed? It just means that Savage is capable of delivering his line of shit in a way that makes some people listen.

“Onward to victory!” the dictator cries, drawing a cry from the crowd in response. “Onward to immortality!”

At that point, their comms click on, and Kendra’s voice echoes through the transmission.

“All set on our end,” she reports. “Jax is in the jumpship, ready to extract you guys.”

Leonard shifts next to Sara, and she glances at him, seeing his brow furrowed even more than before.

“Especially if... and by if, I mean when... this thing goes south,” he mutters. And there’s something…it’s not the usual “complaining about Rip’s plans” tone. It’s a statement of fact, Sara thinks, and he’s watching the procession of Savage & Co. out of the room with an odd focus even for him.

Rip says something then, and Sara looks back at him. So she misses whatever Leonard sees next…but she doesn’t miss his words.

“Savage's lady friend just made us,” he observes, sounding more resigned than alarmed.

Rip sighs. “Have faith, Mr. Snart,” he murmurs. But Sara darts a glance at Leonard, noting the set of his jaw and the tense way he’s holding himself, and she knows who she agrees with.

Impossible, to leave quickly in a way that doesn’t look like they’re leaving quickly. But they try, Mick, then Leonard, then Sara and Rip in single file, following Savage, the young woman, and more than a handful of guards. They head through a doorway and up a flight of stairs, with no reaction from those they’re following

“If we don't move real soon, we could get ourselves killed,” Mick observes _sotto_ _voce_ as they reach the new floor, which looks more like a deserted parking garage than anything else.

“How about we play this like Chicago?” Sara hears Leonard return as they approach a passageway. But then she’s just barely heard Mick’s “Could work” when the bigger man stops in his tracks in the passage, turning aside and kicking Rip’s feet out from under him. The captain hits the ground, the two criminals drop back and to either side of the door, and Sara whirls to look at Leonard as she hears his cold gun power up. (Although she moves aside too.)

“What the hell did you do that for?” she asks, unable to keep the annoyance from her tone. Leonard’s been better than this for some time now…or has he?

The guards turn, nearly as one, Savage and the woman at their head, all of them lifting their weapons. Rip, lifting his head, blinks at them, and then gets to his feet, pulling out his gun and firing, taking down one guard as Sara pulls out her own weapons. Savage flees, a few guards following him, as Rip falls back to the shelter of the wall as well.

“We'll take Savage,” Leonard tells her, a smirk lurking around his mouth—the asshole. “You tie up the guards.”

Sara rolls her eyes—there is, perhaps, such a thing as _too_ much confidence in her abilities—but throws herself into it. She’ll pay him back later.

But she’s only a moment or two into a battle with the other blond woman when she realizes that it’s going to be a bit more complicated then she thought. The girl—she is, Sara thinks, really just a girl--is _good_. And she’s used to fighting with batons, with some moves that clue Sara in that she has edged weapons experience too, and it might almost be fun if not for the fact that her opponent may be trying to kill her while Sara’s just fighting to subdue.

Then Kendra’s voice crackles in her ear.

“Sara, the woman you're fighting,” she says urgently, “you need to take her bracelet.”

“Are you seriously jewelry shopping right now?” Sara returns under her breath, pulling back, glancing down at the bangle in question and catching a bit of a smirk on the girl’s face in return. They disengage, stumbling back to regard each other.

“We're outnumbered!” she hears Mick shout, as more voices rise, and the crackle of the heat gun in tandem with the shrill noise of the cold gun. There’s a sound of many people running as more reinforcements arrive, and Sara would curse if she wanted to waste her breath.

“Fall back!” Rip yells. “Mr. Jackson, now would be a good time to pick us up!”

And…there. Sara gets a solid hit in, then a kick, watching the younger woman reel back.  And then Leonard’s there, the cold gun lowered and pointed at the girl, an odd and steely look on his face as he circles around, weapon still trained on her. Then he lifts it and catches Sara’s eye, and they start after the others.

Sara glances back once and catches the young woman watching them.

There’s a very strange expression--almost a smile--on her face.

* * *

“What, _exactly_ , do you think you were doing back there?” Rip is not amused with Leonard and Mick, and Sara can’t precisely blame him, even as she has an odd suspicion that there’s more going on in her lover’s head than is obvious. There usually is.

“Distracting Savage's pals, which worked, by the way,” Leonard informs him as they all head to the bridge. And he’s not wrong.

Rip knows it too. “Yes, well, I could've been killed.”

“Never said it worked perfectly,” Mick retorts.

Sara rolls her eyes. “At least it wasn't a complete bust,” she sighs. “We found out about Kendra's bracelet.”

The captain stops in his tracks. “What bracelet?”

But Kendra and Ray have met them on the bridge, and the original owner of the jewelry in question speaks.

“My bracelet,” Kendra tells him. “I was wearing it the night of my first death.” She gestures toward one of the screens, where an image of the blond woman and the bracelet are projected.

“That's great,” Ray says, perking up. “Uh. Not the death part. That's terrible. But we can use it to kill Savage.”

“A _bracelet_?” Sara asks him incredulously. She’s used to using everyday objects in new and frankly violent ways (the League could offer a master class on that), but that’s a new one.

Leonard has stopped to regard the image of the blond woman, but he shakes his head then, in a way that’s more thoughtful than negative.

“That woman...girl. The one who made us.” He turns back toward the others. “The one with the bracelet. She’s got some sort of connection to Savage.”

Ray tilts his head, folding his arms. “Well, no kidding,” he says. “She was right up there on the dais with him.”

Leonard ignores that. “Not just an aide, or a soldier,” he continues, watching the video footage that Gideon obligingly pulls up. “Or even a valued general. Too young for that, especially given that Savage’s a bit of an asshole when it comes to women. He’s not going to have her there just for kicks.”

He shrugs when Rip gives him a weird look at that.

“He treats Big Bird here like his own personal property,” Leonard says, nodding to Kendra. “You think he’s any different with any other woman?”

Kendra chuckles a little. “Leave it to Snart to make that into almost a term of affection,” she murmurs to Sara, who simply shakes her head. She’s still trying to figure out what Leonard’s up to, here. It seems like a rather odd thing for him to fixate on.

Leonard stares at the video a few more moments, then nods.

“Daughter,” he decides, “by birth or adopted. Not the right vibe to be anything else. Maybe a protégé, but I don’t think so. Why would he give her the bracelet, otherwise?”

He frowns, then, as if the thought bothers him for some reason, but Rip sighs. “And that’s a…fascinating…supposition, Mr. Snart,” he says, folding his arms. “But do you have a point here?”

Leonard flicks him a rather unimpressed glance as Stein and Jax join them on the bridge. “She’ll know about Savage’s defenses, for one thing,” he drawls. “And I presume you want us to…acquire…the bracelet? What if we steal them both?”

“Are you talking about _stealing_ a human being?” Stein asks with horror in his tone, even as Rip throws up his arms and turns away.

“Again with the kidnapping!” the captain groans.

Sara and Kendra share a glance at the theatrics, then sigh in what’s very nearly unison. Then Kendra looks at Leonard, who’s still watching the video with an odd focus.

“Why?” she asks him simply. “Why do you think that’s a good idea?”

Leonard glances up at her, then shifts his gaze to Sara as a few of the others drift toward them as well. He looks like he’s trying to decide what to say, or maybe whether to say anything at all, but after a moment, he shrugs a little, looking away again.

“Because I’ll take the odds that no matter her _apparent_ loyalties, Savage isn’t precisely dad of the year,” he says in a low tone. “Far from it.”

“That’s not exactly a surprise,” Jax comments, and Leonard acknowledges that with a tip of his head.

“Yeah, but I’m talking in the particular, not the abstract,” he continues, watching the video loop again. “It’s the way she...” He waggles a hand in the air, in uncharacteristic indecision. “…the way she moves around him. The way she watches everything like it’s a potential threat. Or opportunity.”

“ _You_ do that,” Stein comments, frowning at him.

Leonard gives the older man a look that’s almost patient--and Stein looks sheepish as he realizes what he’d said. But the thief lets him off the hook in a somewhat unlikely fashion, turning away to look at the video again.

“It’s not just in the way a fighter like Sara does,” he says. “And…this girl, she’s always and especially aware of where _he_ is and what he’s doing.” He nods toward the image of Savage. “Probably even convinced herself that’s a good thing, because she’s one of his soldiers. But...”

At some point, while Leonard’s been talking, Mick has wandered back in with a beer in hand. Sara, at least, had noticed, but the other man has been quiet, listening intently. Now, he saunters over to the table, leaning over to watch a bit himself.

“Yeah,” he says gruffly. “You’re right.” He takes a pull of his beer and appears about to speak again…but then just grunts and turns away again. Ray gives him a slightly distressed look, but steps up to the table himself, watching the video. So does Rip.

“The others do that too,” the captain points out.

But Leonard shakes his head. “Not like she does.” He looks at the image with a stony expression. “She’s probably a real true believer, too. Or she tells herself she is.” He sighs. “That’s how you convince yourself it’s OK. That he knows best. And not just for you but for everyone else.”

He flicks a glance at the others, then. “You get over it. If you’re lucky.”

Rip looks thoughtful too, but then Gideon speaks up, distracting everyone.

“Captain, I've detected movement 300 meters southwest of our position and closing,” she reports, a map appearing on one of the wall screens.

“Savage's army?” Ray asks.

“Negative,” Gideon tells him. “I believe they are all that remains of the resistance forces.”

Rip nods. “I'm going to make contact with them,” he says with determination. “They might have information on Savage that we can use to our advantage.”

Leonard interrupts, though. “You want us to get the bracelet,” he drawls. “So, we get the bracelet. Do we take her?”

No question who he means. Sara’s starting to wonder if she should be a touch jealous. But this doesn’t have that kind of a feel to it.

And: “No,” Rip tells him, tone stern. “Can you imagine what would happen if we kidnap Savage’s daughter? As you say, Mr. Snart, someone he considers his property?”

Leonard’s chin goes up and his eyes glint rebelliously, and Sara sighs inwardly, recognizing a battle in the making. But to her surprise, the crook lets it go, keeping his mouth shut, and Rip watches him another moment and then sighs too.

Then he turns away, heading off the bridge. “In the meantime, Ms. Lance, get Ms. Saunders ready. Ray, Martin, Jax...come with me.”

Ray gives them all a mournful look, while Stein shrugs and Jax sighs, but they follow Rip. Sara, however, glares after him with indignation of her own.

“How am I supposed to teach someone to fight with a piece of jewelry?” she asks.

Rip doesn’t look back. “Good question.”

“It wasn't rhetorical!”

* * *

Well. Time to plan a heist. Of sorts.

It’s been a while, but the wheels are already turning in Leonard’s head, the familiar and oddly comforting give-and-take of plans and logistics and other such considerations. It's especially comforting right now, with the other thoughts rattling around in his head, and he can’t help but embrace it.

Leonard lets out a long, slow breath, thinking, then jerks his chin at Mick, knowing the other man will follow him, that they’ll be able to find somewhere where he’ll be able to research to his heart’s content, where they can plan and consider and discard scenarios until something fits. They’ve done it countless times in their lives, and despite multiple trials and changes and even time travel—and all the weirdness that’s brought them—they won’t completely alter that.

Then he turns to leave the bridge….but he gives Sara a long look as he does so.

Leonard doesn’t regret playing the situation with Savage like he did—they’d needed to do _something_ , and there hadn’t been time to come up with anything else. But he doesn’t really want Sara pissed at him for it, either.

He’s not too worried. She’s pragmatic. She’ll get it, if she doesn’t already.

And, yes, after a moment, she does give him a slight smile and a tip of the head, as good as something far more effusive in other people. Sara gets it. They’re good.

They’re good.

* * *

Sara, smiling a little, watches Leonard and Mick leave, then glance back at Kendra…to see her friend giving her such a smirk that she’d undoubtedly caught every bit of that wordless byplay. Sara just shrugs and grins, then turns her attention back to the screen and the image of the bracelet projected on it.

She considers it a moment, then glances back at Kendra, studying the other woman with a League-trained eye. Kendra faces the scrutiny with a calm regard, then spreads her hands, smiling at her friend.

“I _have_ been training,” she says. “And, yes, Rip was right. I was surprised by Mary Xavier.” She gazes off into the distance for a moment, her smile a little enigmatic but fond.  “Let’s just say…she’s not all she appears. She’s not a fighter herself, but…well. Long story.”

Sara wonders but lets it go. “I still don’t know how to teach you to kill with a piece of jewelry,” she says with another sigh. “And let’s face it, I know far too much about how to kill with just about anything.”

She doesn’t mean to sound quite so self-pitying, but…well, frankly, Mick’s reference to her as the “killer” part of the equation (and the others’ easy acceptance of it) still smarts a little. Kendra’s sharp gaze goes back to her face, and Sara tries not to look quite so…so…ugh. So pathetic.

But Kendra doesn’t seem to think so. Instead, she reaches forward and takes Sara’s hand, squeezing.

“How _are_ you?” she asks. “It’s so hard to believe it was only a day or two ago for you guys. For us…oh, what a year.”

Sara’s startled into a chuckle. “I’m fine. I’m good! Really. Less than two days, Kendra!” She tilts her head. “And you? You seem…you seem good.”

Kendra nods, that calm expression returning to her face. “I am. It was an interesting year. I mean, I was busy, learning…or remembering…how to be a mom again.” The expression that crosses her face then is…well, Sara is awed by the depth of it. “But I was also studying—the Refuge has an amazing library—and training.”

Sara nods, but holds her peace and Kendra continues, gaze focusing on her as she brings herself back to the present.

“Before…I always felt like I was sort of…helpless,” she says, her gaze sharpening again. “Tied to Carter whether I wanted to be or not, hunted by Savage no matter what. Just sort of baggage for the rest of you in 1958. And sometimes it felt like that on the ship, too.”

Sara immediately demurs, but Kendra shakes her head, smiling, and continues. “Bound to a destiny I didn’t want, told by everyone else who I was, or am. With no say of my own.” Her smile grows. “I don’t feel that way anymore. _I_ say who I am.”

Sara studies her. She’s had her share of identity crises, but Kendra’s had so many more years to deal with. And yet now she seems so….serene.

“And who are you?” she asks quietly.

Kendra nods, as if she’s expected the question.

“Hawkgirl,” she says with quiet confidence. “So many things, throughout the years. Warrior and priestess. Scholar and teacher. Wife and mother and friend. Chay-Ara and Kendra. All of it.”

Then she flicks a gaze toward Sara…and giggles. “And barista. Can’t forget that.”

Sara laughs out loud at that, then finally, moves forward to give her friend a big hug. Kendra hugs her back, hard and fierce, then steps back to arm’s length, studies her a moment and nods. Then she looks at the display and its image of the bracelet again.

Sara looks, too. And she feels the germ of an idea beginning to form at the very moment Kendra speaks up again.

“The bracelet doesn’t have to stay bracelet-shaped,” she says thoughtfully. “Does it?”

* * *

Well, when it all comes down to it, sometimes the best plans are the simplest ones.

Leonard’s not sure this is one of those times. But after studying diagrams and maps of Savage’s base and considering the other resources available, he’s not sure it isn’t, either. And he doesn’t really have any better ideas, for once.

He scowls at the screen in Mick’s room as if it’s to blame. Unreasonable, and he knows it. It doesn’t help that before he’d rolled his eyes, fetched some cleaner and wiped the screen off, it’d been nearly too blurry to use, marred with fingerprints and smears of...something. Mick, who could never be called fastidious, had watched him with amusement, neither offering to help nor getting in his way, then obligingly (for Mick) settled down to help him plan.

Which, as always, came down to grunting in agreement or disagreement or chiming in with a well-timed “Gettin’ way too complicated, Snart.” It worked for them.

As was often the case with plans, as they threw ideas out and then away, those plans became more and more elaborate—at least, until Mick performed his habitual role and pulled Len back down to Earth. Leonard (as usual) glared at him, but Mick (as usual) was obdurate, and Leonard (as usual) eventually conceded

“We’re just going to have to walk in there and try to take it,” he said eventually, staring at the blueprints. “Damn it. Can you imagine what Rip’s going to say?”

Mick guffawed, shaking his head. “And Blondie,” he points out knowingly. “Missing a chance to try an’ impress her?”

Leonard glares at him again. Mick laughs again. Then he takes a swig of his drink, leaning back against his chair.

“Something’s botherin’ you,” he says after a moment, perceptive in the way he rarely lets other people see.

Leonard considers and discards several responses. Then he shrugs.

“Yeah,” he admits. “Weird thing is, I’m not even sure why.” He taps a pencil against the sheet of paper in front of him. (With some things, he’s still old school.) “Mick.”

“Snart.”

“Gotta question.”

Mick takes another drink, unfazed. “Shoot.”

There are actually a lot of questions. But Leonard considers another long moment before going with his first impulse, one of the first times he’d twigged to something weird going on. (As if flitting around time in the Waverider chasing an immortal asshole isn’t weird enough.)

“After the team picked us up in 1958,” he says slowly, “and I...went to visit you in the brig.”

Mick’s eyes harden a little, as they often do when someone brings up his time as Chronos, but Leonard knows it’s not aimed at him. He waits until Mick nods, then continues. “You said...that _they_ said I was supposed to be on the ship. When you attacked it in Harmony Falls.”

A moment. Mick grunts. It’s vaguely affirmative, which is as much as Leonard figures he’s getting, so he continues.

“ _They_. The Time Masters?”

“Yeah.”

“And you said...’it was promised.’ ‘It was planned.’” Leonard takes a deep breath, uncertain how Mick will take him pressing this. “They planned it? How did they know—or think they’d know? Where I’d be? Why would they have any idea? And if they knew where the ship...”

But Mick has the heel of his right hand pressed to his forehead, eyes closed, and he’s frowning as if in pain, and Leonard leaves off his questioning, waiting. After a moment, Mick shakes his head, opening his eyes.

“What do you mean?”

Leonard frowns. “I mean...you said they told... _promised_ you I’d be on the Waverider. They planned it. So you’d go to Harmony Falls and...what? Take the ship?”

Mick’s scowling down at his beer. “He...oh hell, _I_....was gonna sabotage the ship and take the jumpship,” he says slowly. “And you.”

It's pretty clear that nothing good would have happened to him if Chronos-Mick had managed that. Leonard can feel a muscle jumping in his clenched jaw, but he does his best to ignore it. “And the Time Masters told you I’d be on the ship so you’d do it.”

“I guess.” Mick stares at his drink a moment longer, then takes another swig. “Yeah.”

“But you...Chronos...had been hunting Rip and the ship for a long time. How’d they suddenly know just where and when we were?” He should stop, he should stop with that, but the one detail is still clamoring at him. “And why were they _so_ sure I’d be on it?”

Mick shakes his head roughly. “I dunno.” He lifts his eyes and stares at his partner. “I don’t _know_ , Snart. I didn’t ask questions as Chronos, OK? And the memories, they’re fading fast, and I’m OK with it. I don’t _want_ them back.”

Leonard can’t blame him. But...

But he remembers all too well. He’d been planning to stay on the ship after returning from Harmony Falls, actually. The knowledge of how he’d left Mick had been a sour, burning pit in his stomach, the dilemma of what to do had been occupying every thought, and he’d...well.

Well, he’d planned to hide and wallow in his own misery, to be honest.

But something had started nagging at him. An intrusive thought, he’d call it—yeah, he’s read up on such things--but it’d been frankly far more healthy than he associated with such thoughts.

He’d started thinking about how much he wanted to see Sara, to let her presence, her understanding, salve the pain in his...his heart. He’d been pretty sure she knew, that she’d never once thought that he’d killed Mick, and the thought of that had driven him out into the gently falling snow to find her.

It made sense.

And it was totally unlike him.

Someone, he thinks, in a sudden and uncanny fit of certainty, is pulling his strings.

Maybe more than one someone. For better…and for worse.

“C’mon,” he says suddenly, standing, tired of thinking about it. “Let’s go steal this damned bracelet. Before Hunter gets back and starts sticking his nose into things.”

Mick grunts but follows suit. “Blondie going with us?”

He’s thought about it, but… “If it comes down to close-quarters fighting with little Savage, we’ll already have missed our chance. Let’s just make this fast and as simple as possible.”

The other man snorts. “Snart. When do things ever stay simple around here?”

Of course, they don’t.

* * *

“So, how’s everything with Ray?”

Sara and Kendra are now hunting through one of the cargo holds, searching for something Kendra hasn’t been willing to even identify. She’d taken Sara’s suggestion of melting down the bracelet and coating a weapon with its gold with a smile that was first thoughtful and then downright diabolical. Then she’d led her friend to the hold, leading her on a methodical search that’s already taken nearly an hour.

Kendra opens yet another crate and rifles through it in a desultory fashion, as if she already knows it won’t hold what she’s looking for. Sara, who only knows she’s looking for a weapon, pauses too.

“It’s good,” Kendra says—quietly, but there’s a wealth of feeling behind it. “It was _good_ for us, this past year.” She gives Sara a quick smile. “I mean, we spent a lot of time together in 1958, Ray and I, but for us at least, it was still…constrained somewhat by being, well, 1958. At the Refuge, we could be more…us.”

She closes the lid, looking off into the distance. “I mean, we were getting accustomed to parenthood, but Ray could use the labs at the Refuge to do experiments, and we both studied. I trained. And we were alone, just the three of us, so often, that we…just talked. Ray and me. A lot.” She tilts her head and looks at Sara. “I feel like I know him far better now than I knew Carter, in this lifetime. And we…oh, we really do mesh, so well.”

Sara lifts an eyebrow, and Kendra continues. “Think about it,” she muses. “Ray…he’s so _good_. Always trying to be better. To help. And I…well, the more the memories set in, of all those thousands of years…I tend toward…well. Cynicism.” Sara’s eyes dart to hers, and Kendra nods. It’s a gesture full of understanding.

“I know,” she says with some amusement in her tone. “Far cry from the barista who came onto the ship only because Carter ‘made’ her, isn’t it?”

“A bit.” Sara studies her. “Cynicism, huh?”

“Yeah. Maybe me in this life and you didn’t start out with a ton in common…but I’ve lived more than one life.” She winks, a gesture at odds with the serious words. “And…oh, Sara. I get it. I’ve looked into my past and it’s had its darkness, a lot of it, at times.” Her expression sobers. “My past lives, they weren’t always, or even often, idyllic, even without Savage. Just…take it from me. OK? I’ve done a lot of things to survive. I’ve killed. Worse than killed.”

The words are blunt. Terse. Honest. And Sara, watching her friend, suddenly thinks that Kendra’s dark eyes look…ancient. A shiver crawls down her spine and she does her best to conceal it. But she doesn’t look away.

Instead, she takes a deep breath. “Ah,” she says carefully. “And Ray?”

And just like that, the sparkle in Kendra’s eyes is back. “He balances that. He’s so very _good_ , Sara. Optimistic. Kind. He balances me. Even, or especially, when I look into the darkness.” She smiles. “We’re in love. And we have the most amazing son.”

She closes her eyes then, and Sara hesitates, unwilling to add more pain to the fact that her friend has been forced to leave that son behind.

But then Kendra abruptly opens her eyes. “And you and Snart?” she asks, grinning slyly.

Sara laughs, surprised. “It was only a day or so for us, remember?”

“Still.” Kendra’s voice is dry.  And Sara can tell she’s not backing down. So, she takes a seat on a crate and thinks a moment, while Kendra moves on to another one, giving it a quick inspection even while listening.

“It’s good.” Sara considers. “Very good. I mean, it’s not like you and Ray. More like we take turns yanking each other out of the dark. Reminding each other that we can be more. But it works for us.”

“Hmm. Everyone needs something different.” Kendra nods, closing the lid and moving on to another crate. Unexpectedly, then, she giggles again. “He was adorable with Alex,” she says fondly, pausing “And that’s not a word I ever thought I’d use about Leonard Snart. But then, he’s a complicated guy, isn’t he?”

“Very.” Sara gets to her feet. “Like this odd focus on that woman. The one he thinks is Savage’s daughter. I can’t figure out where that’s coming from.”

Kendra rests her hands on the crate. “Hmm. He just had to put his little sister back in the home they grew up in, right? And then he pinpointed that woman as an abuse victim pretty quickly.”  She shakes her head. “If he couldn’t save Lisa…”

“Good point.” Sara flashes her a quick grin. “You’re getting pretty wise there, high priestess.”

“Bite your tongue.” Kendra opens the crate, then, and makes a satisfied hum of discovery. She pulls out a large book—Sara vaguely recognizes it—and sets it aside, then lifts out an object with a reverence Sara’s only seen given to a few weapons over the years.

“Is that a mace?” she asks, moving closer. “Yours?”

“Yes. I know that now, although Carter had it first in this lifetime.” Kendra regards the weapon. “I trained with a mace at the Refuge. Just a feeling. If we cover it in the molten gold from the bracelet, when we get it, it should do the job.” Her expression hardens. “Farewell, Savage.”

The mace has never been quite Sara’s style. But she’s not going to argue with Kendra. Not with that expression on her face.

Still, it’s a rather brutal weapon.

“Wouldn’t a knife work just as well?” she asks tentatively. “If it had the gold from the bracelet on it?”

“Probably?” Kendra continues to study the mace, that hard, determined light still in her eyes. “But this is _my_ weapon. It’s only right that it kills Savage.”

Sara lets it go. “Well. Mick will be glad we have something for him to burn.”

* * *

Rip and the others return from the camps grim-faced and distracted. Jax immediately mutters something about supplies and vanishes, while Stein glances around and then follows him. Ray is frowning in a very unRay-like fashion, crossing to Kendra and holding a low-voiced conversation with her. Sara sees the other woman glance at Rip and frown as well.

For the captain’s part, Rip seems to have mixed feelings about how far ahead of him they are, especially when he learns from Gideon that Leonard and Mick have already headed out to the citadel. He’s fidgety and distracted, and while she can’t blame him (she knows when and where they are, after all), Sara can’t help feeling like something’s about to go wrong. Very wrong.

Of course, that’s when Len and Mick return. With a guest.


	10. All Your Grace, Your Style

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Second one for "Leviathan." Many thanks to LarielRomeniel for the beta!
> 
> I spent so long trying to figure out what Cassandra was thinking in this ep. And I continue to write the Kendra I wish we'd gotten!

“There I was, thinking we could go a whole week without kidnapping anyone,” Rip says, raising his voice as he stalks into the brig, Sara on his heels. “Didn’t I tell you…”

The young woman in the brig doesn’t look surprised to see him, but she does look surprised, for some reason, to see Sara. Her blue eyes widen, and they stare at each other a moment before the captive glances away, then back, seeming to reclaim her calm.

“I think you'll find it would have been better to simply kill me,” she says, folding her hands in front of her, tone too calm for mere bravado but too practiced for true serenity.

Sara shakes her head and regards Leonard, whose eyes have flicked away to meet hers. He looks…thoughtful, she decides. Like he’s chasing down a plan or even just some sort of realization. But what it is, she has no idea.

“It's a little more complicated than that,” he tells Rip. “She knew who I was.”

He doesn’t sound surprised. Just…still, thoughtful. Sara looks at the girl again. Her gaze is fixed on Leonard with an odd expression, then moves to Sara for the briefest of moments before settling on Rip.

“I know who all of you are,” she announces. “It's a pleasure to meet you, Gareeb.”

Rip stares, then shakes his head. “I see Savage has been rather chatty with his lieutenants,” he says.

The girl smiles. “If you think I am merely Savage's soldier, you're more idiotic than he claimed,” she tells him. “I'm not his lieutenant. I'm his daught….”

“Yeah,” Leonard cuts in, and maybe only Sara sees the look of shock on the girl’s face, “figured that out already. What’s your name, kid?” He folds his arms. “And what kinda line has Pop Savage been feeding you? About us…about everything.”

The young woman scrabbles to regain her equanimity. “Cassandra,” she tells him coolly. “Yes. I am Vandal’s daughter. And…”

Now Rip cuts in. “Enough. Team meeting.” He scowls at Leonard, who seems thoroughly unfazed by the disapproval. “Now.”

Sara glances back at Cassandra Savage as they leave. Their enemy’s daughter is staring after them, the oddest expression on her face. Determination, and confusion. Resolve, and irritation.

And…is that just a faint hint of wistfulness?

* * *

“Snart was right?” Ray asks, only a few minutes later, all of them gathered in the study. “Vandal Savage has a daughter?”

Sara glances over, expecting Leonard to have some sort of irritated commentary about the tone of surprise. But no. He’s leaning against the doorframe, arms folded, eyes dark and distant.

She’s not reading him well right now. And she doesn’t like that.

Stein spreads his hands. “Apparently it's true,” he says. “There's a lid for every pot.”

Jax snorts. “And this lid is gonna be very upset when he finds out that we took his pot.” He shrugs at the looks his comment gets. “You know what I mean.”

For a moment, it looks like Leonard is going to say something. But he doesn’t. Mick, however, does.

“Well, we snagged the bracelet,” he rumbles, looking at Kendra. “You're welcome, by the way.”

She smirks at him with a tip of her head. Ray, though, looks worried.

“We need to weaponize that thing before Savage knows that it and his daughter are missing,” he says.

But Kendra lifts a hand, glancing at Sara. “Actually, I think I've got that figured out,” she says, then looks back at Mick. “But I'm gonna need you to burn something for me.”

Mick tilts his head back at her. “About time.”

Rip looks like he’s not sure whether to be alarmed or relieved at that exchange. He settles on irritated, glaring across the room at Leonard, who still seems unfazed. “We also need to figure out what we're going to do with our new guest.”

“She's seen us and the ship,” Sara cuts in, trying to support Leonard even if she doesn’t understand quite what he’s up to. “If she runs back to Savage, we're giving him a huge advantage.”

But: “She already knows about us,” Leonard says quietly, studying his fingernails. “He’s told her all about all of us, Rip.” He looks up, then, gaze intent. “Doesn’t that seem…odd…to you?”

Rip shakes his head. “We don’t know what he knows or doesn’t know…what he’s really told her…”

“Then we need to find out.” Leonard’s tone is sharp, but Mick speaks up then, suggesting sending Savage a finger, and Stein counters him, and Sara closes her eyes, fighting off a headache.

“If she is Savage's daughter,” she cuts in during a moment of silence, “then she would know the details of his defenses.”

Rip sighs. “Yes, well, how exactly are we going to get those details out of her?”

But Leonard’s already turning away, out the door. “I'm on it.”

Sara watches him go, frowning.

* * *

Why can’t any of the others see it?

Leonard’s not quite seething as he stalks along the corridors toward the brig. He’s irritated with Rip—so what else is new?—but he’s more baffled.

Everyone’s still talking as if Savage doesn’t know about them. But he clearly does, enough to tell his daughter, who is just as clearly intrigued. Not worried, not really. Intrigued. As if Savage knows they can’t…they won’t...

Leonard feels the faint start of a headache and shakes his head roughly. But then he’s there, at the brig, and it’s showtime.

“Hello, Cassie,” he drawls, sauntering in. “May I call you Cassie?” He leans against the glass, eyeing the black-clad girl, who rises to her feet. “Here's the deal. You have information. I want it. The question is, how am I gonna get it?”

Slowly, Cassandra Savage approaches him. She looks, on the surface, very calm, but Leonard can still see that odd interest in her eyes. It’s not attraction, he thinks. He’s had plenty of men and women and others throw themselves at him over the years. This isn’t that. Not quite.

It’s as if he--the Legends in general are a story she’s been told since childhood, something meant to scare her that’s instead become something altogether different.

“I'm the daughter of Vandal Savage, the immortal ruler of the world,” she says to him then. “Do you think he hasn't prepared me for this?” Her chin goes up a little. Bravado, despite the even tone of voice. “Do you think I haven't already been taught to endure the most extreme suffering?”

Quite the charmer, ol’ Vandal. Leonard ducks his head, watching her.

“You know, your father sounds a lot like mine,” he muses. “Could never really say, ‘I love you,’ except with his fists.”

Savage’s daughter looks indignant. “Our fathers are nothing alike, Mr. Snart,” she tells him, stepping closer.

Leonard gives her a head tip that invites more. Obligingly, Cassandra continues.

“Fourteen years ago, the world was ruled by a madman, Per Degaton,” she tells him intently. Leonard tries not to scowl at the memory of that weaselly little brat. “He unleashed the Armageddon virus in order to conquer the globe. It tore through the world like a fire.”

She takes a deep breath. “Millions died, including my mother. There were riots, wars. Hell on Earth. No one dared to stand up to Degaton, except for my father.” Cassandra sounds rather like she’s reciting something she’s learned by rote. Leonard knows what that sounds like. “He may not be a kind man, but he is the only one capable of putting this world back together.” She nods firmly. “So you can torture me if you like. My suffering's a small price to pay.”

Leonard eyes her. “Who said anything about torture?”

Cassandra hadn’t been prepared for that. She stares at him, mouth falling open just a little. Leonard gives her what he hopes is a slight, sincere smile.

“You seem awful interested in us considering you think we’re gonna torture you,” he says carefully. “What’s Daddy Dearest told you?”

The young woman grasps for her equilibrium. “You’ve chased him through time,” she says. “Gareeb. The Hawk. The Burning Man. The Atom. The Firestarter.” She takes a deep breath then eyes him more carefully. “The Assassin. The Crook.”

Leonard tries not to show any reaction to those names. “And?”

Cassandra’s eyes harden. “And nothing,” she returns. “I always knew you might come for him. I was trained to watch for you.”

Leonard considers her. “And yet, I haven’t seen fear once in your eyes.” He waves a hand as she starts to say something. “Yes, yes, yes, I know, withstanding torture, yadda yadda. But I _have_ seen something more…complicated.”

And that’s when the ship shakes. Leonard stops.

It shakes again. He sighs.

And again. He closes his eyes.

He _has_ seen _Jurassic_ _Park_ , OK? Multiple times. It was a favorite, back when he and Mick were always hiding out in movie theaters after heists.

“Maybe it’s the power trying to come back on,” he mutters to himself then open his eyes and regards Cassandra Savage.

She’s smiling.

“He's coming for me,” she informs him.

“Yeah, you and a bunch of innocent refugees.” Leonard hadn’t been immune to Stein and Jax’s descriptions of the refugee camps, no matter how casual he’d seemed about it.

“If they were innocent, they wouldn't have rebelled against my father.” She sounds smug.

But she doesn’t sound 100 percent sure.

He can work with that.

* * *

Sara’s training with a mace, killing some time and trying to think of some advice to give Kendra, when the impacts start.

She doesn’t go immediately to the same conclusion Leonard does, but she does sigh, lowering the weapon, because it _is_ unquestionably trouble. Big trouble.

She doesn’t know, immediately, how right she is.

Ray’s bolting down the corridor when she emerges from the training room, and Sara grabs his arm, jerking him to a halt.

“What the hell is going on?” she asks, wondering if Leonard’s still in the brig, where at least he can strap in for a jump.

“Um.” Ray blinks at her, then shakes his head. “Just c’mon. I’m pretty sure I’ll be able to show you.” He frowns. “I need to get out there. I could…”

“Just move, Ray!”

They make it to the bridge—and Sara sees. Immediately. Oh, she sees.

“That's...” she breathes, staring at the gigantic ATOM robot outside the Waverider’s viewscreen.

“…incredible,” Ray concludes, even as the robot takes a swipe at the ship. “Rip! If you land, I can…”

“Fire! Now!” Rip yells, even as Sara reaches her seat and straps in. Leonard isn’t there. She tries not to worry. She fails.

“Rip! I…!”

But the robot is reaching for the ship, and Ray doesn’t get to finish.

“Hold on to something!” Rip bellows, even as the robot grabs the ship.

Sara closes her eyes, thinking about Leonard. And Mick, and Stein, and Jax.

“Fire, Gideon! Fire everything!” the captain yells. And then he breathes: “Now might be a good time to start praying.”

And everything spins. And lurches. And goes dark.

* * *

Leonard staggers out into the hallway after he comes to, lurching toward the bridge.

“Gideon!” he yells. “The others! Sara…”

“Ms. Lance is fine, Mr. Snart.” The AI sounds far too calm. “She is on the bridge, and was strapped in, which is more than I can say for you. Your knee…”

OK, OK, he’s a bit older than Sara, and his right knee can be a little creaky. It’s especially annoyed with him right now. Leonard stumbles to a halt, wincing. “And the others?”

“The rest of the team is shaken up but OK…except for Dr. Stein.” Gideon sounds momentarily disturbed. “He will be all right. But he’s in the medbay. Captain Hunter is tending to him.”

Leonard takes a deep breath. Sighs. And then turns and heads back into the brig, where the lights are still flickering, and Cassandra Savage looks far too calm.

“I was wrong,” he mutters, staggering just a little and bracing himself. “Your dad's a gem.”

Cassandra’s chin goes up. Yeah. Far too calm. “He's just doing what he must to save his daughter.”

Leonard shrugs, ignoring his painful knee. “Whatever you say. Now, where was I?” He eyes her. “Oh, right. Convincing you to help us.”

The girl regards him. “What a charming euphemism for interrogation.”

Leonard snorts, tilting his head. He’s had enough of this. He really has. “I know what you're thinking: ‘My dad may not be perfect, but deep down, he's not a bad guy.’”

And then he swipes the ID card Hunter probably shouldn’t have given him, opening the doors.

Cassandra stares at him. There’s that odd look again, the one that’s not even remotely frightened but is somehow...intrigued. “What are you doing?”

“Showing you that when it comes to crap fathers,” he tells her quietly, “there is no ‘deep down.’” He gestures. “After you...”

* * *

Sara makes her way toward the brig, understanding, now, what Stein had said before about refugees. The corridors are full of terrified people, children with tears dripping down their cheeks and men and women bruised and battered, trying to console them and each other. The lights are flickering badly, and there’s debris scattered all over. The scene is full of a quiet desperation.

Fortunately, there don’t seem to be any serious injuries despite their recent wild ride, and Sara is silently grateful for all the handholds along the ship’s walls. She tries to murmur quiet reassurance as she moves toward her goal, but she doesn’t really know what to say. There’s still a giant robot out there, and it’s still on its way to…what? Probably step on them.

Then she hears Leonard’s unmistakable drawl ahead, around the corner, and stops in her tracks, listening.

“These are the ones we could save,” he says, sounding far too casual for the situation—which she knows far too well is simply Leonard Snart concealing feelings. “The rest are ash, much like Delta Camp.”

Cassandra Savage’s cool voice answers him. “You don't know my father at all if you think his daughter could be so easily manipulated.”

Sara thinks she should step around the corner, show herself. But…

“Just trying to show you the truth,” Leonard tells her, sounding just a touch weary. Sara thinks they’ve paused.

“The truth is, my father was trying to save me,” Cassandra retorts.

“From what?” And now there is, perhaps, a touch of asperity in Leonard’s voice. “Untrained civilians with barely any weapons? Your father sent a 200-foot robot to level a bunch of tents.”

The girl responds to that asperity, her own share of annoyance in her voice as she speaks again. “The people in that camp were rebels, dangerous radicals.”

“Please.” The drawl is strong, a sure sign that Leonard’s not backing down. “Do these people look like radicals to you? They're nobodies... everyday folk hoping to survive your father's reign of terror.”

Then his voice gentles, suddenly, unexpected. Sara nibbles her lip as she listens. “Look, took me a long time to accept my old man was a monster. I'm betting you're smarter than I am.”

“ _If he couldn’t save Lisa…_ ” Kendra whispers in Sara’s memory.

Cassandra Savage, though, isn’t having it. “At last,” she tells him, an edge in her tone, “something we agree on.”

They move onward, and Sara takes a step back, but Leonard motions the younger woman toward the corridor to the left rather than the right, away from her. Does he know she’s there? Sara wouldn’t put it past him.

But then he drops his bombshell on Cassandra, in a studied casual tone of voice. “Oh, Per Degaton didn't release the Armageddon Virus. That was your father.”

“Impossible.” But the single word isn’t quite as certain as her voice had been before. “He was only Per Degaton's tutor.”

No, she doesn’t sound sure. She doesn’t sound sure at all. Almost as if….

And then they’re too far away. Sara can hear Leonard’s voice, but not his words, and she sighs silently, turning away. He’s OK. He’s doing what Rip had asked, for once. And she’d best leave him to it.

She’ll go check on Stein and then go look for Kendra.

And try not to wonder what Leonard is thinking.

* * *

Sara can move silently with the best of them, but Leonard’s been a thief for far too long. He may not quite hear her, but he can hear the ripple she causes in the refugees lining the hallways, and he knew when she’d approached…and he knows when she retreats.

He spares a moment of regret for not saying something to her, but he has a job to do now. And he’d heard that note in Cassandra Savage’s voice. She’s not positive what she’s saying is true. And she’d looked downward when she’d commented that Savage was only Per Degaton’s tutor. It’s a tell, and a strong one.

“One, Per Degaton was only a teenager at the time,” he says, moving around in front of Cassandra. It’s a good place to stop. No refugees around, and there’s a viewscreen, right to her left. “Two, he was hardly a criminal mastermind.” Weaselly little brat. “Your father, however...”

Cassandra’s expression hardens. She steps closer, close enough that Leonard’s instincts tell him to pull away. (He doesn’t.) “What makes you think I'd believe anything you tell me?”

Ah, she’s playing right into it. “Because seeing is believing.” He looks her in the eye. “Gideon, show her the footage. Kasnia, November 3, 2147.”

Leonard had already planned this move, like he almost always does. Gideon knows precisely what to play, and she’s been waiting for the request. The bit of video that starts immediately on the screen clearly features Vandal Savage in all his oozing sliminess, the Kasnian Board of Directors arrayed around him.

“The world's population is unsustainable at current levels,” he says, words delivered in a calm tone that belies the horror behind what he’s saying. “The herd must be thinned.”

Leonard can hear Cassandra’s intake of breath. And he knows, _knows_ , that if he looks over at her, he’ll see that calm demeanor fractured. The doubt had always been there. Fellow child of the secret, he’d seen it all along. The shell just needed one good crack.

“This isn't true,” she says quietly, a quaver in her voice. “You're a liar.”

“Correct,” he tells her calmly as she stares at the frozen screen. “But not about this. And you know it... deep down.”

There’s a spark from one of the panels behind them, and it illuminates, just then, a trickle of moisture on Cassandra Savage’s cheek. She shakes her head, roughly, then brings her hands up to scrub at her face, a gesture that’s almost childlike. Leonard tries to conceal the flicker of sympathy it wakes in him—she wouldn’t thank him for it.

Instead, he touches her elbow, tilting his head down the corridor. They’ll find Sara, he decides. She can help Cassandra figure out the best way and place to get them into the bunker and do what they have to do.

The young woman turns obligingly in that direction, but she glances at him as she does.

“He said you were the clever one,” she says in a low tone. “More clever in many ways than many of the others. That you paid attention.”

Leonard conceals his own surprise at those words. Not because of the sentiment. He doesn’t believe in false modesty, and he knows it’s true. But the notion that Vandal Savage is aware of more than his name is unsettling. He _likes_ going under the radar. It’s safer that way.

But he conceals that unease in front of Cassandra.

“Aw, I’m flattered,” he drawls instead, keeping his hand at her elbow and moving them along when it seems like she might want to stop there in the corridor.

She moves, but her steps are slow, and she’s watching him closely.

“I was a girl,” she says softly. “When I first heard of you.”

“You ain’t much more than that now,” Leonard informs her, a little uncertain about her tone.

Cassandra continues as if she hadn’t heard him. “I was weak. I didn’t realize how my father was seeking to make me stronger. Better.” She bites her lip then. “Or I thought he was.”

“Yeah, you thought wrong. Sorry.” He knows he sounds a little brusque, but what _is_ she getting at?

Cassandra stops. “I must have watched hours of video of her fighting. Your Assassin.”

Leonard blinks at her. “ _My_ Assassin?”

“Is she not?” The young woman glances away. “I wanted to learn to fight like her. I learned about all of you. I heard so many stories. But it was the two of you I thought I wanted to be like.” She looks up at him again. “The clever one, the Crook. The beautiful fighter, the Assassin.”

Something clicks. “You heard stories…” Leonard says slowly. He remembers his own childhood. He remembers the grasping for something that might explain why his father seemed to hate him so much, the hope that someone would arrive and whisk him off…

Cassandra continues. “I thought once that maybe my father warned me…because you’d come to rescue me some day.” She looks at him, then flushes. “But you didn’t even know about me. You didn’t even know Vandal Savage had a daughter. Your mission…it has nothing to do with me.”

Leonard stares at her. He’s simply not sure what to say.

Finally: “There are different kinds of rescue,” he manages.

“I know that. Now.” The girl glances away again, giving him a one-shouldered shrug. “It was foolish.”

“No.” Leonard’s responded before he can think better of it. “You…you keep yourself moving any way you can. You survive.” He nods when Cassandra looks up at him again. “You’re a survivor.”

She smiles at him.

* * *

Sara’s not quite sure what to do when Leonard ushers Cassandra Savage into their room, gives her an odd sort of smile-smirk, then heads off to find Rip. The younger woman is looking at her with an almost hopeful expression, utterly at odds with her smugness earlier, and Sara stares helplessly back for a moment before shaking her head.

“Well,” she says finally. “Gideon, can you pull up the diagrams you have for the citadel? Um…should I call you Cassandra or…”

“Mr. Snart called me Cassie.” The girl smiles a little, folding her hands in front of her. “No one’s ever had the nerve to call me that before. I rather like it.”

Of course he did. “Cassie, then.” Sara motions to the screen. “Take a look. How would you suggest doing this?”

As Cassandra studies the diagrams, Sara turns away, pulling her full White Canary outfit from the closet as she hears (and feels) another footfall from the Leviathan. She knows that Ray is even now preparing to take on the robot—he’d explained how he’d perfected reversing the polarity of his suit during his time at the Refuge--but they still have to get Kendra inside so she can fight Savage. And Ray’s not going to move until they do, the better to have the warlord distracted.

“You were a member of the League of Assassins.”

The words are tentative, and Sara turns to lift an eyebrow at Cassandra, who’s giving her an almost shy look.

She doesn’t say anything, but the younger woman continues. “I’ve studied them,” she says. “The League. I…I had a trainer, once, who said he worked with the League. I don’t know if it was true or not, but I tried to learn all I could from him.” She nods. “I am…honored…that I had the chance to…well.”

“Fight me?” Sara asks drily. Cassandra smiles.

“Yes,” she admits. “You probably could have killed me at any time. Couldn’t you?”

It’s not…untrue. Sara had been fighting to disarm rather than truly injure. She smiles a little, feeling the odd urge to encourage the younger woman.

“Perhaps,” she says, folding her arms. “You’re good. Better than most.” Cassandra’s eyes light, and Sara starts to realize, maybe, why Leonard had taken to her.

But then Leonard himself ducks back into the room, urgency in his eyes, and it’s time to move.

* * *

Kendra is focused, her now-golden mace in her hands and her eyes hard and ready. Sara thinks about dropping one last word of advice…but her friend is motivated beyond anything she can provide now. Her husband is currently fighting Savage’s giant robot, and her son is back at the Refuge, waiting for them to come back for him.

Kendra will do what she needs to do.

Once Cassandra Savage has successfully snuck them into the citadel, Sara watches the younger woman square her shoulders and stride out into the open area of the main hall. Sara herself takes a step, then another, planning to move to one side of the corridors with Mick while Leonard and Rip take the other.

But instead, it’s Leonard who breaks their plan, moving with her and leaving Mick with the captain. Sara hears Rip sigh, but there’s no particular reason why they needed to split up in that particular way—not as far as she knows.

They find a vantage point where they can watch for Savage’s arrival, and they wait. Leonard moves to Sara’s shoulder, putting a hand on her hip, and giving how busy and distracted they’ve been, she finds herself learning into the contact, even now.

Then he leans forward, warm breath tickling her ear, as they watch Cassandra Savage wait.

“She almost looks like she could be ours, doesn’t she?” he muses. “Blond, blue eyes, fights like a badass…like you…”

Sara doesn’t mind admitting that her jaw drops. “What?” She looks over at Cassandra, who is standing with her hands clasped in front of her. She’s facing away from the entry, and Sara can see the tension in her shoulders. Savage himself will enter behind her, toward her unprotected back, and the girl is too much a warrior to be completely relaxed about that.

And…he has a point. Hell, the bone structure is even reminiscent of Len’s, a little. The cheekbones. But just the mere thought that that’s a thing that would cross his mind…

Sara isn’t sure how it makes her feel. Not bad, or anything. Odd.

She turns her head just a little, looking at him, unable to restrain another shiver at his closeness. The sidelong grin-smirk Leonard gives her is edged, she thinks, with a little bit of something just as uncertain as what she’s feeling.

“Really?” she asks, the words barely audible. “Where did that come from?”

His shrug is nearly imperceptible, the miniscule rise and fall of a shoulder. “She apparently once fixated on us—all Rip’s ‘Legends,’ but me and you in particular—as people who’d swoop in and rescue her one of these days.” His sigh is nearly imperceptible too. “Before she grew out of dreams.”

His tone is too knowing. Sara thinks about Kendra’s earlier words again.

“And yet here we are anyway,” she murmurs.

Then Vandal Savage strides into the room, and it’s showtime once more.

* * *

The acoustics in the room are such that Leonard can hear Savage and Cassandra perfectly well, although he knows it’d be harder, if not impossible, to hear the quiet conversation that he and Sara had just had. He listens, but a bit distractedly, focusing more on watching, knowing that the immortal warlord’s likely to figure it out sooner rather than later.

Sara’s tense in front of him, staring at the scene and ready for a fight, and he wonders if he should have held his peace about Cassandra for now. They both have enough reasons to hate the dictator without the distraction of being someone’s unexpected idols.

Then Savage grabs his daughter’s wrist. Hard. The sort of grip that’s meant not just to hold, but to hurt, to punish. Leonard knows it well. He feels his own shoulders tense, and feels Sara step back against him, an unspoken but clear show of understanding.

“….you cannot fool me, Cassandra.”

“Like you fooled me?” There’s anger in the girl’s tone. “You told me my mother died from the Armageddon virus. But you were the one who released it!”

Savage gazes at her. Leonard frowns. The man doesn’t look surprised. But why should he? He should know the Legends know what he’d done. Why wouldn’t they use that?

That odd certainty is creeping over him again. The feeling that there’s more going on here. That someone’s pulling strings.

“Tell me it isn't true,” Cassandra hisses at Savage. “I might even pretend to believe you.”

The immortal dictator doesn’t move. He merely watches her.

“Let. Me. Go.”

Savage gives her a shake. “Call them,” he orders. “Call the ones that you no doubt helped gain access to my bunker.”

Now, why…

But Rip’s emerged from the opposing corridor, Mick with him, moving around to cover Savage with his gun.

“No need to trouble yourself, Miss Savage,” the captain says. “We're already here.”

Savage steps away from Cassandra. “Oh, I admire your command of irony, Gareeb,” he says, an odd smile on his face, even as Leonard, his cold gun primed, and Sara, her batons extended, move out from the other side. “Using my own child against me.”

“Pleased to say it didn't take much,” Leonard grits out, flicking a glance at Cassandra, who moves forward and joins the Legends.

“Nothing at all, you ass,” Mick adds, staring at Savage.

Cassandra looks pleased at the support, lifting her chin. “They showed me the truth of what you've done,” she tells her father. “The innocent...”

“Do not speak as if you know anything about ruling a people!” Vandal Savage approaches her, and Leonard tracks him with the cold gun, frowning. “Do you really want to align your fate with these... pretenders? They're nothing but grains of sand in the desert of time.”

And there it is again. The tiniest of smiles on Savage’s face. A germ of…knowledge. Leonard’s frown grows.

But then Cassandra retorts, and some of Savage’s soldiers finally get with the program, running into the room, weapons at the ready. And that’s weird, too, given that they hadn’t entered before, because why wouldn’t they have at least been accompanying the warlord, given that they’d accompanied him nearly everywhere else? Leonard’s eyes dart around the room, but then Savage looks around too, distracted.

“She's here,” he breathes. “I can sense her.” He turns around to regard the Legends, smiling. “You do realize that she can do me no harm?”

Wait. Then why was he concerned about the bracelet being missing?

“Clearly, you didn't get the memo,” Mick tells him with satisfaction.

Kendra swoops in with a scream, hitting the dictator hard, knocking him away, into a side chamber, but there’s no time and space to watch that battle now. Leonard sees a burst of blue light out of the corner of his eye, but the soldiers are on them, and he’s punching one who got too close, firing on another, and Sara and Mick and Rip and Cassandra are fighting, too, and it’s chaos.

He picks one black-clad soldier off with a blast of ice as the man gets too close to Sara, then whirls as there’s a sound from behind him. Another soldier falls, and Cassandra smirks at him as he notices the man had been aiming at his back.

“I had it covered,” he tells her. That smirk looks awfully familiar. As in, he’s seen it in the mirror.

“Sure, you did.”

Leonard tips his head to her. She deserves it.

Someone is yelling over one or more of the soldiers’ comms about the Leviathan being down and the ATOM heading for Whitechapel, and Leonard feels a rush of satisfaction as he turns to mark the position of Sara and Mick and the others again. Perhaps…just perhaps all his paranoia about something feeling off has been just that.

And that, of course, is when something… _something_ … _someone_?...sends him stumbling toward the area where Kendra’s been fighting Savage, an instinct and a compulsion, not unlike the one that had sent him out into the snow in Harmony Falls. He hears Sara yell his name and follow him, and they explode into the room just in time to see a helmeted soldier, who’d apparently entered the room just in front of them, bringing his gun up to fire at Kendra as she prepares to swing at the fallen Savage one more time.

Leonard brings his own gun up, but Sara’s ahead of him, kicking the gun out of the soldier’s hand and sending him to the floor, unconscious, his helmet falling off and rolling away.

“Carter?” Sara says in amazement, pausing. And Kendra hears her, glancing over her shoulder, eyes widening.

And it is. Well, it’s someone who looks like Carter Hall, or Khufu, whatever his name is now. Leonard shakes his head roughly. He has a headache.

“Your love…” Savage is still sprawled on the ground, but now he’s smirking up at Kendra, a man sure he’s holding a trump card. “Reincarnated. He doesn't even remember who he was... and he never will.”

Kendra stares at him. “What?”

“When I first discovered him, when I found out that he had no idea about his real identity, I took my precautions and I locked his mind away.” Savage laughs. “Strike me down. Kill me. But do so knowing that I am the only one holding the key to his mind!”

Leonard glances at Sara, but then Kendra responds.

She laughs. It’s not a pretty sound. It’s raw and angry and has all the power of thousands of years of struggle and sacrifice behind it.

And Savage’s smug face goes blank.

“That isn’t the Carter I knew,” the former high priestess tells him coldly. “Presumably, there’s another Kendra—or whatever her, or my, name is now—out there who might be looking for him, who might buy into the soulmate thing, who might fall in love with him. That’s her business. 

“But this man _isn’t_ my love.” She shrugs. “And why would I believe you anyway? Because you’ve been so good to us over the years? You’ll be gone. Perhaps we can still do something for him.”

Savage’s eyes widen as she lifts the mace again, and he begins to struggle, but Kendra does not wear the expression of a woman who’s willing to back down. She swings the mace, with every bit of her strength behind it, just as Rip runs into the room too.

The burst of light, this time, is different. It’s not blue, like it had been before, and Leonard has just registered that…and a shadowy figure in the corner of the room…when everything goes black. But when he comes to, staring at the ceiling for a stunned moment before getting his bearings and levering himself to his feet, it’s an awfully familiar feeling. Like…

Sara’s right next to him, a hand to her head as she sighs. “What a headache…”

The words ring a bell, but then a cry of anger and anguish behind them makes him spin. Kendra’s already up and she has her boot on the warlord’s throat. Her eyes are hard, as she glances over at them, but her hands…are empty. Her mace is nowhere to be seen.

And Savage is laughing.

“And what will you do now, my love?” he mocks her. “Whatever happened to your pretty weapon?”

Kendra looks back at him, then up at the others. “I don’t know what happened, Rip,” she tells him. “I’m so sorry.” Savage chuckles again, and Kendra’s hands tighten into fists.

She looks down at them…and smiles, grimly. “You know,” she tells him. “These were present the night of my first death. In a manner of speaking.” She holds up her hands. “How about we see if strangling you bare-handed works?”

Savage’s eyes widen again, but then Rip’s there, reversing his gun in his hand.

“We need to get him back to the ship,” he says in a grim, broken tone, promptly clipping the warlord on the head and sending him off to dreamland. Leonard hears Sara sigh, but when he glances at her, she’s looking at the figure still prone on the ground behind them.

“What about…what’s his name, over here?” she asks, prodding Carter—well, it’s as good a name as any—with a toe.

Kendra sighs. “I mean…do we take him with us, see if Gideon can get through to him?” She spreads her hands with a shake of her hand. “Leave him here?” She glances at the approaching Cassandra, who’s staring at her unconscious father. “Do you know anything about what your…what Savage did to him?”

But the young woman shakes her head. “No,” she says with a tone of regret. “He went by ‘Scythian Torvil.’ He’s been one of my father’s…of _his_ top adjuncts for some time. A true devotee of the cause, I thought.” She meets Kendra’s eyes. “But…so was I. I will see what I can do, if you let me.”

Kendra regards her a long moment, then nods. “But you can’t stay here. Unless you think your father’s forces will follow you?”

“Some will.” Cassandra takes a deep breath. “Many will not. I don’t know…”

“I have an idea.” Leonard hadn’t been sure he was going to speak until the words emerged. He sees Sara tilt her head at him and gives her a smile, then looks back at Cassandra.

“Is anyone going to even bother asking me what I think?” Rip’s scowling at them, but the man looks both exhausted and brokenhearted, and Leonard declines to needle him at this moment.

Instead, he just regards Cassandra. She gazes back at him, then glances at Sara, and then Kendra and Rip. She doesn’t even look at her father.

Then she smiles.

“Lead on,” she says quietly. “Mr. Snart.”

* * *

The combined refugee and resistance camp is still barely controlled chaos, but it’s not like that’s surprising. Leonard knows that Raymond has been leading some of the more tech-savvy occupants in cannibalizing the now-quite-defunct Leviathan for parts, and bits and pieces of that tech have started popping up here and there. It’s a small help, to start, but a real one.

Cassandra is tense and wary next to him as they stroll into camp, but the presence of one of Rip’s “Legends” had been enough to get them past the main guards. Leonard glances at her, then nods to himself. She’ll do fine.

They’d decided not to bring Carter-Scythian-Whatshisname yet. Kendra’s trying to jog his past-life memory just a little before they spring the rather obnoxious Savage devotee on the rebels, but she’s likely to have enough of his behavior soon. Ray, eager to prove himself a good husband who’s confident in his spouse’s affections, is trying to help. Sara, who’d given Leonard a long-suffering look before he’d left for the camp, is keeping an eye on all three of them.

She had exchanged a few words with Cassandra before they’d departed, though. He hadn’t listened in. But the younger woman had been thoughtful afterward, thoughtful and a little less uncertain of her decision.

“You!”

The rebel leader, whom Leonard doesn’t know by name, is stalking toward them, staring at Cassandra and ignoring Leonard. People turn to stare, and Cassandra draws in a quick breath, halting.

“You!” the commander repeats, voice raised in amazement and anger. “What's to keep me from killing you where you stand?”

Leonard moves quickly forward. “Because she's an asset to the cause,” he says smoothly, then glances at Cassandra. It’s on her now.

The girl nods. “My father may be incapacitated,” she says, “but his forces are still strong. I know their tactics, their weaknesses.” She looks like she might say more, but stops, spreading her hands before her, a gesture of offering, of supplication.

The other woman studies her. “Why the change of heart?” she asks finally.

“Ask him.” And Cassandra looks at Leonard, then, smiling. He smiles back.

There are many kinds of rescue.

* * *

When he gets back to the ship, Leonard wants nothing more than to go find Sara and see if he can talk her into locking themselves into their room for a few hours. He’s been thinking too much—thinking about how something’s still very, very off, about how that light in the citadel had seemed far too familiar, about how there’s now a very deadly immortal warlord on the ship with them and how that warlord seems far too pleased to be there. He needs distraction.

A little bit of pleasant physical exertion seems like it would fit the bill quite nicely.

Alas, it’s not to be. Not yet, anyway. Nearly immediately, he literally crosses paths with Rip, who’s stalking along the corridor toward the brig, focused on his path. Leonard stops, and sighs, and turns.

“Heading to see our guest?” he drawls, falling into step with the other man. The captain casts him an irritated look but doesn’t stop or even slow.

“I neither need nor want company, Mr. Snart,” he says in a low tone.

“Tough.” Leonard eyes him. “Come on. I won’t even go in the room. It can’t hurt to have another set of eyes there.”

Rip continues looking ahead. “Ah, yes, well, I’m sure it will be compelling theater,” he retorts. “But I’d prefer if you didn’t.”

“Tough,” Leonard repeats. “And here we are.” He halts, gesturing magnanimously for Rip to enter the brig ahead of him. The captain eyes him, then sighs, but he walks into the room anyway. Leonard stops in the doorway, leaning against the frame, and watches.

Rip halts in front of the glass, staring at the occupant. “Well, you seem quite happy for a man behind bars,” he says the warlord, who is indeed looking quite pleased with himself.

If Savage sees Leonard there, he gives no indication. His focus is on Rip, and he’s exuding smugness. Odd.

“Why shouldn't I be happy?” He smiles at Rip. “It seems that you once again have failed to kill me.”

“A momentary setback, I assure you,” the captain retorts, folding his arms. But Savage chuckles.

“Assure yourself,” he says. “Do you not believe in destiny, Gareeb? You say, I know, that time wants to happen. Fate marches on.” He spreads his hands out before him. “Did not…destiny…step in when Chay-Ara tried, in so ill-advised a fashion, to kill me? How else would you explain it?”

Leonard’s eyes flick to Rip. He rather wants to hear the response to that as well. But the other man dodges it.

“You know, a friend recently suggested to me that there is no such thing as fate,” he tells Savage. “Destiny is nothing more than the sum of our own choices.”

And then…Leonard’s blood runs cold. Because Vandal Savage’s smile, at that moment, is downright frightening. And knowing. Very, very knowing.

“I see,” he says quietly. “So, you still think there's hope, then... for your family.”

And he laughs.

“Time will tell, captain. Time…will tell.”


	11. All I Long to See

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry these chapters took so long! I got distracted. This chapter and Ch. 12 (which I'll post later this week) deal with the events in the episode "River of Time." Many thanks to LarielRomeniel for the beta.

Mick has always, for nearly as long as Leonard’s known him, had a sixth sense about the nearest place to find alcohol.

And trouble. Or both.

Usually both.

In some ways, it’s almost reassuring that he retained that ability through his time as Chronos, and even now, back on the Waverider. Especially as Leonard is willing to admit, for once, that he could really use a drink.

And his friend comes through.

“Mission... almost accomplished,” Mick mutters as he saunters out of Rip’s office, toward the others on the bridge, taking a swig right from an old-looking bottle.

“That bottle of Scotch was given to me by Rob Roy MacGregor in 1689,” Rip tell him, but there’s more resignation than anger or even annoyance in his voice. The captain has been...off, even more so than usual, since the events in Savage’s London. The heartbreak and disappointment of having Savage’s defeat—and presumably the salvation of his family--right there in front of him, and then snatched away, are more than enough explanation, Leonard figures...but he still has an odd feeling it’s more than that.

“It's not half bad,” Mick allows, extending the bottle to Sara. The scotch is probably significantly better than that—Leonard’s always liked (and recognized) the pricier stuff more than Mick—but he lets that go. They’re all a combination of unsettled, resigned, and restless.

“We _should_ be toasting to Savage’s death,” Sara comments as she takes the bottle. She’s sitting next to Leonard’s jump seat, back against his arm, her hair brushing his shoulder. They’re both uneasy about Savage on the ship, and even the casual contact is a comfort. Len's ceased to find that unusual.

He himself is twitching his foot distractedly, eyes downcast, still thinking. The mysterious disappearance of Kendra’s mace is nagging at him too, but in a different way than it’s nagging at Rip. There’s still something he feels like he should remember.

Sara reaches up and nudges Leonard, handing him the bottle. Not his usual preference, but he accepts it, taking a healthy swig anyway. Kendra, who’s leaning against the holotable next to the quiet Stein, sighs.

“I have no idea what happened,” she says, looking down at her hands as if they hold the answers. “It just...vanished.”

“Not your fault, bird girl,” Mick informs her, his tone almost gentle. “ ‘Less you knew you had the amazing disapppearin’ weapon and didn’t tell us.”

Len snorts, but Kendra smiles.

“Thanks, Mick,” she says, even as she looks down at her hands again. “I thought…I thought it would be over. That we could…”

Her words trail off, but everyone there knows what she means. That she, and Ray, could go back to their son, waiting for them at the Refuge.

Leonard’s not unsympathetic. Far from it. But he’s a little more preoccupied by his own thoughts. He holds the bottle back down to Sara, who takes it.

“As long as he's on board and breathing, Savage is a threat to everyone on this ship,” he says abruptly. “He _wants_ to be here. Why…”

He can feel Sara nod as she takes a drink, then turn her head to glance up at him, but just as he’s chasing down the thought— _why_ does this keep happening?—Raymond and Jax clatter back onto the bridge. And they, unlike the others, actually look happy about something, or at least excited.

“Sorry we're late,” the scientist says in something that at least approaches his usual upbeat manner, holding something up, “but we found something!”

Jax nods too. “We've been running diagnostics on Ray's suit after his battle with Savage's Rock 'Em Sock 'Em Robot.”

“The telemetry data included a comparative scan of the robot's tech,” Ray picks up, putting said diagnostics on the holotable screen as they watched. Leonard studies them, a trifle annoyed that he doesn’t understand the scientific gobbledygook a little better, then glances at Sara, who’s frowning in that direction too.

“Amazing,” Stein breathes. “This neuromorphic profile is astonishingly futuristic.”

Kendra studies it, looking a little puzzled. “Yeah, it's from 2166,” she says, a questioning tone in her voice.

“Well, that's the thing,” Jax tells them. “It's not.”

“This technology's light years more advanced than anything from 2166,” Ray says excitedly.

“Who cares?” Len snaps, his uneasiness prickling him even more.

But Rip’s eyes have widened now, and he looks like something’s clicked, like Ray and Jax have handed him a gift he didn’t expect. “The Time Masters,” he says, staring at the screen, straightening. Sara gets up too, crossing to the table, taking the bottle with her. “They refused to take action against Savage because he didn't pose a threat to the timeline.”

“But if he comes into possession of future technology...” Stein starts.

“It means he's been engaging in exactly the same manipulation of time that the Time Council was designed to prevent,” Rip finishes, gesturing. His eyes are bright and actually hopeful… and why does this whole conversation unsettle Leonard so? He shrugs uncomfortably, but only Sara notices, turning around to regard him again.

“So now they'll finally sign off on undoing all the damage Savage has done to the world,” she says, looking back around at Rip.

“Last time I checked, the Time Council was at the edge of the timeline,” Mick cuts in gruffly, “and this bucket of bolts can barely hold it together as it is.”

Rip raises his voice, swiping the bottle off the holotable. “Gideon, what's the status of the time drive?”

“Stable, Captain,” the AI says promptly.

The captain beams. That’s really the only word for it. He moves around the room as they watch him. “Plot a course for the Vanishing Point.” He plops down in the captain’s chair, a light in his eyes. “Tonight, Vandal Savage faces justice for his crimes!” And he takes a swig triumphantly.

Somehow, though, Leonard feels more unsettled than ever.

* * *

The captain, looking far less disconsolate, leaves the bridge only minutes after that, and Sara guesses that he’s heading to the brig to confront Savage. She briefly considers following him—seems like it might be best to have backup when around Savage, even when he’s captive—but Len gets quickly to his feet too. Sara, twisting around to look at him again, can see the expression on his face, and it’s not happy.

She considers a moment, then follows him, catching up just as he ducks into the room that’s now theirs.

“Hey,” she says quietly as he spins to face her. “What’s eating you?” Then, when there’s no response, “I can tell by the look on your face, Leonard.”

For just a moment, she can see the old sneer, the one she knows he used to put on like a mask when dealing with some of the others, start to cross his face. It’s armor just as much as the chill and the sarcasm are. But it’s Sara here, and Len’s not the man he used to be, and the expression vanishes as soon as it appears. Leonard scrubs a hand over his face, an oddly vulnerable gesture, then looks at her with what almost seems to be pleading in his eyes.

“Sara,” he says after a moment. “Since we got back on the ship. After the 1950s. Has anything seemed…off…to you?”

She stares at him, trying to give the question the due diligence it deserves. But…they’re on a timeship, hunting down an immortal warlord, and _off_ isn’t an easy thing to pin down.

“I…I don’t know,” she tells him cautiously, not wanting to sound skeptical when he’s obviously unsettled about something. “Like, how?” She thinks about it another moment. “You mean, like what you said about Savage wanting to be here? Why do you think that?”

“I followed Hunter when he went down to the brig, right after we got back on the ship in 2166.” Leonard’s frowning at nothing in particular. His eyes flick to hers. “You don’t get the feeling someone’s…pulling our strings? Maybe…maybe even more than one someone?”

“No?” But even as she says it, Sara gets the feeling she’s forgetting something. She doesn’t like it much. “Or…I don’t know? Why…”

Leonard’s turned away, restless. “Why did Mick think I was going to be on the Waverider? Back when it left us in 1958? The Time Masters told him I would be. They were wrong. Because I had…something else urge me out.” He turned back, abruptly. “It’s happened since then, too. Maybe before. I’m not sure.”

Sara tries to puzzle that out. “ _What’s_ happened since then? Something…urging you?”

“Maybe. I don’t know.” Leonard’s mouth is a thin line, but his eyes…he’s agitated. Sara takes a step closer and stops, completely at sea over what to do.

The silence hangs over them a few moments more. Then Sara takes a deep breath. “Well, when do you think it happened?”

Another moment, then Len lifts one shoulder in a shrug. “Couple times,” he says quietly. “I dunno.”

“And…you think that’s not the only thing going on?”

He feels a little more comfortable with that inquiry; she can tell by the way he shrugs and actually makes eye contact. “Don’t you?” he asks. “There have been so many things that just don’t make _sense_. Rip thinking he had to kill Per Degaton, even though Gideon told us all that it wouldn’t make any difference—and fuckin’ ignoring the idea of just dealing with the damned virus.”

Sara frowns as she considers that, but he’s continued. “The Pilgrim and how she just sort of… fucked around. Scariest killer the Time Bastards were supposed to have, but she didn’t do much. She coulda cut a few strings here and there…” He holds up two fingers and makes a snipping motion. “…and there’d be no Legends. Instead it was just one mess after another. Doesn’t that seem odd to you?”

Sara nods slowly. “You told me later…you thought it was strange they’d want to kill young Mick considering everything Chronos did for them…”

Something sparks in his eyes, as if he’s relieved she’s following some of this. “And the Time Masters trying, supposedly, to kill young Rip—even when older Rip told us point-blank it would fuck with the timeline too much. And Cassandra Savage—I’d swear she was set up to look for us. And…”

Sara puts up a hand, though, stopping him. Her head hurts. “I don’t…”

“Hell, even the mace…”

“Leonard, I asked…”

“ _No_.”

Sara stares at him, stunned, but any irritation she feels is swept away in what she sees. Leonard, cool, collected Leonard, has both hands to his head, turning away in pain or confusion.

“Len,” she says urgently, stepping toward him, “what…”

He looks up then, and back at her, eyes almost desperate. “The light,” he says. “When Kendra’s mace vanished. Didn’t it feel like when Rip collected us all? In the beginning? With that Time Master gadget of his?”

Sara blinks. “I guess it did. So you’re suggesting…what? That the Time Masters took the mace? There wasn’t anyone there.”

Leonard looks like he wants to argue, but instead he just shrugs wearily. “Do you have a better idea?”

“No, but…” She reaches out to him. “Let’s get you to the medbay.”

Leonard evades her hand. “I’m not sick.”

“Well, something’s wrong!” Sara snaps back.

“There is, but not with me.” He sounds calmer again. “Sara. Can’t you see it?”

She’s trying, she really is, but it’s like the pieces of the puzzle keep slipping away. Which is sort of an answer in itself, really. She takes a deep breath, then another, and sighs.

“You’re right,” she admits. “But I’m having trouble focusing on it.”

Leonard’s not-quite-a-smile seems almost grateful. “Yeah,” he says, leaning, almost sagging, against the wall. “That seems to be a thing.”

“I’ll tell you what,” Sara sighs, folding her arms and moving a little closer. “I’ll try some meditation techniques I know, see if they help me think a little more clearly about it.” She fixes him with a look. “Later. OK?”

Leonard’s eye roll doesn’t really succeed in being as long-suffering as it’s probably meant to be, because he also looks so damned relieved. “If you think that might help,” he drawls, folding his own arms and lifting his chin. “But I meant what I said earlier, too. Savage _wants_ to be here. And I think we need to know why.” He pauses. “And why does Rip think _this_ will make the Time Bastards act, after everything? He’s just as convinced as he was with that brat Degaton, and for as little reason.”

Sara regards him thoughtfully. He has a point. “Why?”

“No fuckin’ idea.” He shrugs restlessly again, then turns toward the door. “I wanna talk to Mick. See what he remembers of the Time Masters.”

Oh, because _that’s_ going to go well. But Sara doesn’t say it. She just sighs.

“Good luck,” she says quietly to his back. But Leonard’s already stalking down the hallway, taking his discontent with him.

* * *

Barely 20 minutes later, Sara’s mostly forgotten what Leonard had been so agitated about, but she _has_ remembered his words about Savage. And she’s followed up on them too, asking Gideon a few semi-pointed questions that the AI is only too pleased to answer.

In fact, she’d almost say that Gideon is unhappy, if that’s even possible, relating that Rip had taken the ship to maximum on the time drive despite her warnings. Sara bites her lip as she heads into the captain’s office, the notion of something she should remember prickling at her as she sees Rip bent over his maps and charts.

“Not to sound like a six-year-old,” she asks, approaching, “but are we there yet?”

The captain doesn’t even look up. “No, the Waverider was severely damaged in Savage's last attack,” he says distractedly—as if she hadn’t been there when it happened.

Sara looks at the screens in the office. She’s no expert, but that amount of red can’t be good. “Yeah, I can tell by the way she's flying.” She turns back. “You sure you're not pushing her too hard?”

Rip regards her with a touch of asperity. “The longer Savage is on board the ship,” he says, “the greater the danger to all of us.”

That, she’s not going to argue with. But… “To us, or your family?” Sara asks calmly, getting the briefest of glances. “I checked with Gideon. Bringing Savage onboard didn't change the timeline, and your family still dies.”

She almost feels bad even saying the words, but Rip won’t look at her. It’s as clear a tell on him as it is on Leonard, and wouldn’t they both hate that idea? “The timeline is always in flux,” he says, looking downward at his charts. “Once we get to the Vanishing Point, all will be well.”

_He’s just as convinced as he was with that brat Degaton, and for as little reason_. “Is that why you're pushing the ship beyond its limits?”

Now the captain looks up, and there’s a little more irritation in his gaze. “This has been my ship for the last 13 years,” he informs her. “No one knows its limits better than I do. Not even Gideon.” The ship shakes, although he doesn’t seem to realize it. “The Waverider will hold together. I promise you.”

And because fate has a sense of drama, that’s when the ship jolts even harder, circuits exploding, sparks flying. Sara tumbles to the ground, but immediately clambers back to her feet, following Rip as he stumbles out of his office.

“Bollocks,” the captain cries. “Gideon!”

“Time Drive failure, Captain,” the AI tells him. (And she manages not to suggest “I told you so.”)  “The mains are offline.”

“What happened?” And there are Jax and Stein. Sara wonders briefly where Len and Mick are, but…they can take care of themselves. She has a feeling there’s something else she needs to be checking on.

“It appears the Time Drive is in need of some repair,” Rip tells him before turning to Sara. “Uh, Miss Lance, if you wouldn't mind going, checking on our guest?”

“On it.”

* * *

Gideon’s forthcoming enough with the news of what’s happening with the ship, but she’s also clear that there’s really nothing Leonard can do right now to help. Rip and Jax are working on the time drive, she says, and Savage is accounted for. She doesn’t mention Sara, but Leonard isn’t the sort to worry without reason, and he accepts that she’s fine and probably being more useful than he is.

Mick, as he should have predicted, is rather non-forthcoming about the Time Masters. Leonard tails him to the galley in hopes that he’ll change his mind, but he’s also remembering how Mick had mentioned once that his memories of his time as Chronos are fading quickly. Better, perhaps, not to reinvoke them.

Although distinctly unhelpful.

The replicator’s down, but Mick raids the snacks on hand, grumbling as he does so. Leonard slumps in a chair, still thinking furiously.

Well, even if he can’t pinpoint what’s going on, there’s one thing he’s nearly sure of. Going to the Vanishing Point is a bad idea.

He’s examining that surety, however, when Mick interrupts his thoughts.

“Why are all the snacks in the future sugar-free?” he mumbles around a mouthful of some manner of pastry. Leonard winces at the mess and the crumbs, but it’s not his hill to die on right now.

“So much for progress,” he retorts, drumming his fingers against the counter, then pauses, a thought occurring to him.

“You remember Alexa?” he asks casually.

Maybe too casually. Mick, who knows perfectly well that he never brings up that name without good reason, eyes him.

“Yeah,” he says. “From the security deposit job.” A pause. “What about it?”

Mick may be tone deaf sometimes, but he’s more perceptive than many people give him credit for. Like now, offering Leonard an out by focusing on the job instead of the person. And Len takes it.

“Just had a feeling about that one,” he says slowly, “a sixth sense things would end badly.”

Mick grunts, spraying crumbs and making Leonard sigh. “And they would have, if you hadn't pulled us out of there.” His eyes narrow. “So what?”

“I'm getting the same feeling now.”

Mick’s quiet a long moment, then grunts again. “So…what?” he asks. “You sayin’ we should leave? How we gonna do that?”

Once…maybe. But there’s no way he’ll leave without Sara, and if he’s utterly honest with himself, he doesn’t want to abandon the others, either. Not now.

“No,” he finds himself saying. “But maybe we can convince Rip that’s he making a mistake.”

His friend snorts. “Yeah, well, good luck with that. You got no proof and it’s the only hope he’s got.”

Again, perceptive. Leonard makes an irritated noise, thinking. About Rip’s unreasonable conviction that he’s doing the right thing. About his own similar conviction that…

He stops.

“Mick,” he says slowly, “I know you don’t want to think about it, but…were there ever any stories that the Time Masters had something that could…change time?”

Mick eyes him. Then he grunts again. “Same way anyone can.” He shrugs. “Send a bounty hunter to off someone, time changes. Burn a library down, time changes.”

Leonard decides he doesn’t want to know, but then Mick speaks again.

“Knock one asshole outta power. Time changes. Or...”

“Or put one in power?”

In a strange way, it’s like those words didn’t come out of Leonard's own mouth. He barely thought before he said them, and it’s an odd feeling. But that’s all knocked aside as he realizes what he’d said, and what it could mean.

Mick just grunts and shrugs. “Sure?” He returns to poking at the sugar-free snacks, scowling.

Leonard stares at him. “Like Savage?”

“I guess.”

Mick’s not stupid. And the very fact that he’s not thinking about this more says something, just as much as how the captain keeps insisting that they have to take Savage to the Vanishing Point.

But Leonard, at that moment, thinks it’s all too clear.

Isn’t it?

After a silent moment, he gets up from his seat, weighing options, then heads for the door.

“Where you goin’?” Mick calls after him.

Leonard doesn’t answer. He’s still not sure.

* * *

He puts more pieces together as he walks, and the corner of his mind that’s seemed to be lobbying for him to make connections all along is altogether too helpful. But even if he’s right, if he’s anywhere close at all, he’s not sure how those connections will be received.

He’s been weighing a few options, but his footsteps wind up taking him toward the bridge and Rip’s office, and as he draws closer, he hears Sara’s voice there too. It’s both relief and encouragement, and Leonard takes a deep breath as he approaches.

"...that you would sell us out to save your family,” he hears Sara say.

“He's not wrong,” Rip returns, and Leonard could do more with that, he really would, if it wasn’t for the fact that he’s on a different mission entirely. “Mr. Jackson...”

But they both look up as Leonard stalks into the office, throws a quick, unhappy smile at Sara, and spins to face the captain.

“The Time Masters are pulling our strings,” he tells the other man. “Aren’t they?”

Rip gapes at him a moment before closing his eyes and sighing. “Mr. Snart,” he says with irritation, “this is really not the time for...”

But Leonard brings both hands down on his desk, a little more forcibly than he’d planned, all the frustration and restlessness of his conflicted thoughts affecting his actions.

“Listen to me, Rip,” he hisses. “We’ve been doing what they want, all along, at least for the most part. We’ve even given Savage the information and the tech he needs...”

“Len...” Sara says warningly, but Rip’s eyes narrow and there’s anger in them, too.

“They tried to kill us all!” he snaps back. “Or have you forgotten that so soon? Have you forgotten about your sister?”

Leonard doesn’t take that bait. “Did they?” he asks in return, leaning forward, willing the other man to listen to him. “Did they really? Or did they just...herd us? Made us keep going? Made us, made you, more desperate? Desperate enough to go to 2166?”

“We _captured_ Savage in 2166!” The captain moves out from behind his desk, facing Leonard, his mouth a thin line and rage and desperation in his eyes. Leonard can see Sara moving carefully around, keeping her distance, although he tries not to wonder whose side she’ll take if it comes to that.

“But we wanted to _kill_ him,” he tells Rip, “and we would have if not for someone, something, taking Kendra’s mace. With, I might add, a Time-Master device like the one you once used to kidnap all of us.”

Sara makes a thoughtful noise then, but Leonard keeps his eyes on Rip. The other man blinks, a furrow appearing between his brows, and for a moment, Leonard thinks he’s gotten through.

But then the moment’s gone.

“That doesn’t make any sense,” Rip spits back. “Tell me, then, why they simply would have let us all walk away?”

“I dunno, maybe there’s more they want from us,” Leonard fires at him. “Savage got the Atom suit tech, he got information on the Firestorm matrix. Maybe...” He stops. “Of course, that’s what he wants. Kendra.”

He can see Sara nodding. “And he’s trying to provoke someone, maybe into letting him out,” she says quietly. “Rip...”

But Leonard doesn’t get a chance to figure out how Sara knows that. The captain glances at her with dismay in his eyes, but then it’s gone again as he looks back at Leonard.

“Oh, of course,” he mocks. “And why is it that you...” He waves a disparaging hand at Leonard. “...are the one to figure all this out? With the genius-level intellects on this ship? I am _trying_ to do the best I can to save my family and the world, and I’ve been doing that for _years_.”

Leonard doesn’t take the bait. Again. If they all survive this, he thinks with asperity, he deserves a medal.

In some ways, though, it's a good question, and he hesitates, trying to figure out how best to answer it.

“Something’s different,” he says slowly, as Sara moves to his side, “something’s not what they want, maybe because of what happened back in Harmony Falls...”

But before he can feel the words out, Rip rolls his eyes.

“Or, so now you’re saying _you’re_ the difference?” he asks with asperity. “I hate to disabuse you of the notion of your own importance, Mr. Snart, but that's not the case. I simply needed a thief, one who was...insignificant to the timeline. I could have picked someone else.”

“Now, wait one second,” Sara snaps at him. But Leonard, while grateful for the defense, dives right back in.

“But you didn’t,” he tells the captain. “And, honestly, I’m not sure you could have...but that’s another issue. Thing is, I’m here now, for better or for worse, and I think we’re taking Savage right where he wants to be, with the person he’s been trying to get his hands on for years.” He takes a deep breath, trying to project sincerity. It comes, perhaps, easily than it might have, once. “Please. Rip. Think.”

“He’s right, Rip,” Sara adds. “Just...let’s slow down and try to figure this out. OK?”

For a moment, Leonard thinks Rip’s going to listen. The captain sighs and runs a hand through his hair, learning heavily on his desk. “I...” he starts.

But then there’s the sound of heavy footsteps approaching, and Rip pauses. Mick, with the excellent (not) timing Leonard’s always known him for, thunders into the room, glaring at the captain in a way that promises mayhem.

“What the _hell_ did you do to the kid?” he barks. “Just talked to Stein. Jax’s gettin’ old, fast, and he’s gonna die if you don’t figure something the fuck out.”

“Wait...what?” Leonard stares at the captain too, as does Sara. Rip looks, if anything, more resigned as he stares at his desk.

“Intra-something degenerate-something.” Mick restrains himself in a way that shows how he’s changed too, folding his arms instead of reaching out to wrap his hands around Rip’s throat in the way Leonard’s pretty sure he’d like to. “ ‘Cause dickless here sent him into fix the time drive alone.”

“Is that right?” Sara asks the captain, her own tone cold in a way that shows more anger than white-hot fury. “Did you know that would happen?”

Rip gives her a look that’s almost pleading. “He should have been able to finish before the radiation had any adverse effect,” he says, as if to himself, looking back down at the desk. “It was the surge when it came back online. I couldn’t have predicted...”

“Like fuck you couldn’t...” Mick starts.

Sara’s eyes have narrowed. “Savage was right...”

“ _Stop_.”

The other three look at Leonard, but he knows it’s already too late. Just like other times, things are moving on, and the chances of dragging them back to the matter at hand are just about nil. Indeed, Rip’s already shaking his head again, a determined look in his eyes.

“We’re going to the Vanishing Point, Mr. Snart, Ms. Lance, Mr. Rory,” he says, scanning them. “The time drive is rebooting. We will soon be on our way.” He takes a deep breath. “I’m asking for a little faith.”

Leonard lets out a long breath. “Sorry,” he mutters, “fresh out.”

The captain’s already turned away. “Well, if that's how you all feel, none of you is obliged to continue on this voyage with me,” he tosses back over his shoulder. “As I told Martin, the jump ship can make a one-time voyage back to 2016. This mission has always been a voluntary enterprise.”

“Has it, Rip?” Leonard asks before he can stop himself. “Has it really? Starting to think it never was. Not for any of us, including you.”

And with that, he turns and walks away. Sara and Mick go with him.

* * *

They’re not far down the hallway, however, when Leonard stops. He turns on his heel and looks at them, and Sara relaxes a little at his expression. This isn’t a man who’s giving up and running. Far from it.

Mick stares at him, then looks at Sara, then looks back at Leonard.

“We’re not actually leaving,” he says. “Right?”

“Right.” Leonard looks back and forth between them too. “You’re both listening to me now. Why?”

Sara gives him a rueful smile. “Guess it just clicked,” she says. “Listening to you try to get through to Rip. I don’t get what’s going on either, but something’s off.”

Mick grunts in agreement. “Something’s weird,” he says. “You’re not completely making sense, but I’d rather listen to you. Rip’s losing it.”

Leonard smiles a little at that, even as he glances back toward the bridge. “The Time Masters know what his strings are, and they’re pulling them hard,” he says. “In fact, I bet they probably tied them there. They let him have...hostages to fortune, despite all their rules, and they’re using that. To make him not think clearly.”

The notion that the Time Masters may have allowed Rip to marry and have a child just to have that hold over him makes Sara’s blood run cold. Not even the League had been quite so...mercenary.

“If I follow what you said before, you’re implying that it’s not just that the Time Masters are protecting Savage’s role in the timeline,” she says, ripping her thoughts away from Rip’s family. “You’re saying they proactively _want_ Savage in power. Why?”

That gets a one-shouldered shrug. “Not sure. Beyond the fact that he would owe them for it. Which might be enough.”

“Who cares about why? How’re we gonna fix it?” Mick wants to know, direct as always. “I don’t want those bastards ever pullin’ my strings again.”

That causes an odd, still look on Leonard’s face, but it’s gone before Sara can comment on it or further analyze it.

“Go keep an eye on Stein and Jax,” he tells Mick after a moment. “I don’t know if anything you learned at the Vanishing Point could help, but if something happens, at least they’d have someone between them and Savage.”

Mick makes an approving noise. “Bet if I fried him, it’d at least fuck up the bastard’s plans a little.”

“Likely,” Leonard tells him drily, but the other man is already headed toward the brig. Len shrugs and turns to Sara.

“Sorry I wasn’t getting it, before,” she says with a sigh, moving closer. “I don’t think I still really do.” She looks up at him, reaching out to lay a hand against his chest, knowing that her smile is a little rueful. “But I trust you.”

She’s sure it’s not her imagination that Leonard relaxes a little more at her words. Then he reaches out and puts a hand over hers, a gesture that’s almost sentimental, by their standards.

“Blame the Time Bastards,” he says. “I am.”

“Oh, I do.” Sara’s expression hardens a moment, then she shakes her head. “I’m going to go see Kendra, tell her what we suspect. She should know. Maybe...maybe she’s picked up something during her time at the Refuge? About the Time Masters.” She studies him. “And you?”

Leonard hesitates for just long enough that she guesses what’s coming. “If you stick with Kendra, would you…ask Raymond to come find me?” he asks finally, and if that’s not already a sign of something off, Sara doesn’t know what is. “I’m going to the brig. Could use back up.”

Sara gives him a look, but then just sighs.

“I was in there before,” she says, moving her hand down to one of the lapels of his jacket and wrapping her fingers around it. “Pretty sure Savage was trying to talk me into a mutiny.”

“Peachy.” Leonard’s smile is wry. “Well, I can’t say I haven’t considered that in the past, but if Savage wants it, it’s probably not a good idea. Still, if I play his games, maybe I can get something out of him.”

“Good idea.” Sara hesitates now, eyes on his. “Be careful. He’s dangerous. And you know I don’t say that casually.”

“Got it.” Leonard gives her one of his lopsided smiles, the ones that make her breath catch so. “You too.”

And then he ducks his head and catches her lips with his, warm and real and insistent, and Sara tightens her grip on his jacket and pulls herself up to deepen the kiss for a long, perfect moment. When they part, they’re breathing heavily, but both smiling, and they move away from each other reluctantly, turning away slowly.

Sara thinks, though, of something before she turns away to go find Kendra. She turns back. “Leonard?”

He turns too, walking backward and watching her.

“If you think the Time Masters want Savage in power,” she asks carefully, “then why do you think they want us to go to the Vanishing Point?”

Leonard studies her a moment. Then he gives her a smile that’s not amused at all.

“I guess I’m wondering,” he said. “Are we delivering Savage to the Time Masters?

“Or are we delivering ourselves?”


	12. And I'll Offer All I Have

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The second of the "River of Time" chapters! Turns out Leonard couldn't completely avoid everything that happened to him in the original(?) timeline.
> 
> Many thanks to LarielRomeniel for the beta!

Leonard’s wanted Savage defeated since he first saw Rip’s image of his city in flames, over the rooftops of Central City that fateful day.

He’s wanted Savage dead since the day the warlord threatened to kill Mick, not so long into their mission.

The way he feels now combines both those feelings and still makes them pale in comparison.

He pauses outside the brig and takes a few deep, steadying breaths, recalling every lesson learned though decades of being Lewis Snart’s son. He has a certain scary conviction that Lewis and Savage are more similar than anyone else might consider.

But he considers. He considers for a long few moments.

And then he saunters into the brig, head held high.

Savage isn’t facing him. The warlord is leaning against the wall, facing away. “Dr. Stein,” he starts in his oozing voice, starting to turn, “I told you, I…”

He stops when he sees his visitor, though, and Leonard thinks there’s actually a flicker of surprise there. Interesting. Leonard halts, folding his arms and regarding Savage with a mildly interested but unenthused expression. He doesn’t speak.

Savage doesn’t let on to anything past that second of surprise, though. He finishes turning, studying the thief intently, and then smiles.

“Ah,” he says, folding his hands in front of himself. “Mr. Snart. I will confess, I was not expecting a visit from you.”

Leonard tilts his head and lifts an eyebrow. It’s an invitation to continue, and Savage takes it.

“The others, certainly.” The warlord takes a deliberate step closer, then another. “They have questions, or they simply want to gawk.” The smile grows. “You, however, do not seem the sort to fall prey to such…prosaic concerns.”

Leonard smirks at him. He knows an attempt to flatter when he hears it. He wants no part of that from Vandal Savage, but he knows how to play the game.

“What can I say?” he drawls with a shrug. “I do tend to be curious.”

Savage inclines his head, keeping his eyes on Leonard.

“Well, I’m glad,” he says. “I think, perhaps, that we have more in common than the rest of this…” he waves a hand, “…motley collection Captain Hunter has assembled.”

Leonard’s eyes narrow before he can stop himself. “We’re nothing alike,” he says a bit sharply, then, cursing his reaction, smooths it out a bit. “For one thing, I’m out here.” Another tilt of his head toward Savage, locked in the brig. “And you…well.”

Oh, the other man doesn’t like that. His eyes narrow, too, before he also attempts to hide it. “But you have to know that none of this group of so-called heroes would hesitate to put you in here as well, in any other circumstance,” he said smoothly. “For simply being what you are. Something far more pragmatic and far less holier-than-thou than they are.” He spreads his hands out. “A survivor.”

He’s good. There’s just enough truth in there that once, it might have even hit a nerve. But Leonard’s been through more than he thinks Savage knows, with this team and particularly three other members of it, and he’s not the person he used to be either. Still, it seems best to play along, a little. He gives Savage a thin smile, one that could be read as agreement or simply understanding.

“Indeed,” he drawls, studying his nails. “And you’re good at that, too, aren’t you? In a manner of speaking.” He looks up, suddenly. “Too good to get trapped here so easily, I’d think.”

Savage stares, then smiles back, a similar expression, thin and considering. He waits.

And Leonard continues. “So, I’m thinking,” he says casually, starting to pace in an equally insouciant manner, “that you might just _want_ to be here.” He turns, ambling slowly back to the left, not looking at Savage. “And I’ll admit, I’m wondering why.”

Stop. Turn. He finally looks back at the man in the brig.

Savage’s expression isn’t quite what he’d expected. He’d expected anger, or maybe surprise. Consternation, maybe. A combination of all three.

But, no. No, Savage looks thrilled. Like he’s found himself someone who _gets_ it.

“Well. Well. Well,” the other man says. “I think we need to have a talk, Mr. Snart. I think maybe we can come to…a mutually beneficial agreement.” A pause. “Let me out, and we’ll talk. I think the Time Masters could use a clever and pragmatic man like yourself.”

And then he smiles. A big smile. A commiserating one.

It turns Leonard’s stomach, actually. He resists the wave of nausea, though, and keeps his expression steely, watching Savage, trying to decide how to play this. In some ways, Savage just confirmed something, but he needs more information. And letting Savage out won’t be good for anyone.

But neither would allowing things to continue as they are.

Leonard makes himself take one step closer to the door of the brig, the warlord’s eyes on him avidly. Then he pauses, as if considering something.

“Tell me first,” he says casually, looking at Savage. “Confirm that I’m right. That you’re working with the Time Masters.” He pauses again. “I need to hear that. Before I commit.” He lets his eyes drift to the lock. “Because if I do this…I’m committed.”

Savage studies him, his face giving nothing away. Then he starts to speak…

Raymond almost skids into the brig, like he’s been running, coming to a halt a few feet from Leonard and pulling himself up, like he’s been entrusted with a very important task. He doesn’t even look at Savage, but he grins at Leonard as if the other man has given him a very surprising gift.

“I have your back,” he tells Leonard staunchly. “I’m sorry; it took Sara a few more minutes to find me. I was…”

Leonard holds up a hand, and Raymond stops. He’d actually just about forgotten he’d asked Sara to send the other man for backup, a measure of how uneasy he was about Savage, so this is his fault, really, he thinks. There’s not even any point in blaming Raymond. More’s the pity.

For a moment, both he and Savage stare at the scientist, whose grin flags just a little.

Then Savage sighs, just a bit dramatically, and shakes his head.

“Oh, Dr. Palmer,” he says almost pityingly. “Incredibly bad timing as usual.”

Leonard can’t disagree, but Raymond’s chin goes up and he looks at his teammate as if expecting a defense. When Leonard shrugs, he rolls his eyes and looks back at Savage.

 “Well,” he retorts, “could be worse. I’m out here and you’re in there, after all.”

Leonard closes his eyes with a sigh, bidding farewell to any hopes of getting more out of Savage. The warlord is focused on Raymond now, a sly smile on his face…and, oh crap, this probably isn’t good at all.

“You…now, you, I’ve been expecting for a while now,” he says a bit mockingly to the scientist. “I’m surprised it’s taken you so long, to be honest.”

Raymond starts to speak again, but Savage talks right over the top of him. “Here to ask how to free your rival’s mind, are you?” He smirks as Leonard and Raymond stare at him. “The moment I release him, you know, you will lose her forever. We're actually quite alike, you and I.”

He leers at them both…but as the silence continues and Leonard and Raymond keep staring at him, that expression flags a little. Then it vanishes, and Savage’s eyes narrow in ire.

It occurs to Leonard that they could use this. Things are clearly different than Savage—just like Chronos—had been led to believe they would be. He whips his head around to look at his teammate, his own eyes narrowed.

“Raym…” he starts to say warningly.

But it’s too late. Raymond finds his voice—and laughs at Savage, an amused sound that also manages an edge of scorn.

“Wow,” he tells the captive. “You’re really behind the times. And what makes you think Carter’s even on this ship?”

Savage takes a step closer to the clear barrier. Leonard sees something flash through his eyes—dismay, rage, consternation. A plan pops into his head, then. Probably not a good idea—OK, definitely not a good idea—but sometimes you gotta roll the dice.

“Chay-Ara would never…” Savage starts.

“First, she’s not Chay-Ara now. She’s Kendra. Second, that wasn’t even Carter, or the version of Khufu she knew,” Raymond informs him. “Third…”

Leonard steps in before the altogether-too-forthcoming scientist can spill even more beans than he has. “I think,” he says smoothly, “that we need…more information.” He gives Raymond a _look_. The other man’s eyes widen, and he gives Leonard a solemn look in return, but Leonard’s already studying Savage again.

“Raymond,” he says quietly. “Go away.”

“Yeah…what?” But then Raymond nods, jerkily, and takes a step back as Leonard glances over. “Oh. Um. OK.” He looks at Savage. And then smirks. Widely. “OK.”

Leonard’s almost proud at the sheer un-Raymond-like attitude. But he waits another long moment for the other man to leave before looking back at Savage. The warlord is staring after the scientist with an expression that looks part baffled and part enraged.

“So,” Leonard drawls, dragging Savage’s attention back to him, “where were we?”

Savage stares at him a moment, then steps closer to the glass. “The man named Carter Hall,” he says. “He isn’t on this ship?”

Leonard considers lying, just for a moment. “Nope,” he drawls, though, folding his arms. “I mean, he was, at best, a reincarnation of Carter Hall. And he was a real asshat.” Savage actually snorts, and Leonard smirks. But he doesn’t say anything more about that.

Instead, he redirects the conversation again. “We were talking,” he says casually, stepping closer. “And…?”

Savage regards him. “Let me out,” he says finally. “I need a gesture too. Before I give you anything.”

Leonard regards him in return. Then he pulls his cold gun out of his holster and primes it, pushing it to the highest setting.

This is a bad idea. This is a _very_ bad idea. But every instinct in him says they’re on their way to disaster at the Vanishing Point. And the need to stand between that and Sara…and frankly, all the others…is strong indeed. If he can get anything, anything at all, out of Savage…well, he’ll do it.

He hesitates a moment…and then slaps the lock to the brig, opening the door.

Savage steps out, face solemn, eyes bright and altogether too pleased. Leonard points the cold gun at him, grimly, watching him intently for any sign of the trouble he’s sure is coming.

“OK,” he grits out. “You’re out. Tell me. What are the Time Masters up to?”

Savage smiles, holding his hands out to either side. “I’ll admit, I’m still wondering,” he says smoothly. “You were…not a visitor I expected. I thought, at first, that perhaps it was just that native pragmatism, that you saw how the wind was blowing and came to make a deal.” He takes a step toward Leonard. “But. I wonder.”

Leonard’s eyes narrow. He raises his gun a little, aiming it right at the warlord, the blue light reflected in Savage’s eyes. “This wasn’t the deal. I want to know about the Time Masters.”

Savage continues as if he hadn’t spoken. “From everything I know of you, Mr. Snart, you’re not one to care about anyone other than yourself. Not much, anyway. Your partner the arsonist, perhaps, to some extent.” He tilts his head. “But. Something has changed. Hasn’t it? Well, well. And how did that happen?” His smile grows even slyer. “You _care_ for someone on this crew of losers.”

Leonard steps forward before he can stop himself, hand tightening on the cold gun’s trigger. “Talk or get back in the goddamned brig,” he hisses. “I just want to know the truth.”

“It’s not Chay-Ara. Or the scientist,” Savage muses, continuing his thought. “Certainly not the captain.” A light appears in his eyes. “Ah. The assassin. Oooh, Mr. Snart. She _is_ lovely. Is that what you want, then? You want the Time Masters to give her to you. In exchange for…”

The very idea is both absurd and stomach-churching, and Leonard can’t keep this up any longer. “Don’t you even say her name,” he snaps, unable to keep the fury from his tone. “You…

But he’s distracted now, angry and disgusted, and it’s enough. Savage takes the chance, lunging like a striking snake and grabbing the cold gun, wrenching it around. Leonard catches himself quickly enough to fight him for it, but while they’re grappling for the gun, Savage gets a hand on the trigger and a spray of blue-white energy emits from it, freezing an icy path across the ceiling, the wall, and…

And, as Savage gives the weapon another jerk, across Leonard’s right hand.

He yells, but it’s not like it hurts. Not at first. It’s too much of a shock, a jarring sensation of extreme cold and then numbness. More than numbness, really, though that’s how his brain processes it. Because at that setting, the hand isn’t even living flesh anymore; it’s already shreds of dead, frozen tissue encased in ice. There’s no saving it, and he can’t think about that right now, he can’t, he’s still fighting Savage as best he can.

But the blast was a shock to his system, and no matter how he tries to hang onto the gun with his other hand, his body and his brain have other ideas, like shutting down and curling up to figuratively lick his wounds. Savage yanks the gun away, laughing triumphantly, and…

Raymond crashes back into the brig, in his Atom suit, hand out and energy beam blasting forward to strike the surprised Savage full on, smashing the warlord across the room and into the wall. He drops like a stone, unconscious, the cold gun skittering across the floor in a way that would irritate Leonard if he wasn’t trying desperately to stay conscious despite the shock. It still doesn’t quite hurt; he’s pretty sure that will come later as things start… thawing…

Raymond studies Savage for a second, then apparently decides the man is truly down for the count and looks at Leonard instead. Leonard, glancing upward as a cold sweat breaks out on his forehead, sees Raymond’s eyes widen as he steps forward.

“Oh,” he breathes. “Oh, crap. Snart…”

Leonard knows he probably owes the scientist his life, but he’s not up for admitting that just yet. “You…coulda…busted in here…sooner,” he pants, curled protectively around the hand that is no longer really a hand.

“I went and got my suit, just in case; I’ve only been back a moment and I didn’t realize you were in trouble at first.” There’s distress in the scientist’s eyes as Leonard peers up at him. “Let’s get you to the medbay.”

“We need…to get Savage…back in the cell first.”

“You can’t…”

That’s when Rip runs into the room, his gun in his hand, although he puts on the brakes immediately to take in the scene in front of him. Relief at the sight of Savage out of commission resolves into dismay at the sight of Leonard and his hand…and faint irritation that seems to be directed at Raymond.

“Bloody hell,” he says with an explosive sigh. “Gideon said Vandal Savage was free. Dr. Palmer, do you realize…”

“I didn’t let him out!” the other man protests. “It was…ah…”

The room’s starting to swim in front of Leonard’s eyes, and the line where living flesh meets frozen is starting to, it seems, register what’s happened. He puts his shoulder against the wall, closing his eyes and fighting nausea and a rising tide of pain, then forces them open again.

“Don’t blame him, Rip,” he mutters. “It was me.”

The look of consternation on Rip’s face would be amusing if he was in a little better condition. Leonard shakes his head roughly, trying to clear his head. He can’t even manage his usual smirk.

“I’m going to presume that you weren’t trying to set him loose on all of us, but then what…” The captain stops himself and sighs. “But not now. Let’s get you to the medbay and get you fixed up.”

There’s only so much fixing that’s going to be possible, and Leonard doesn’t want to think about it. “Who’s flying the ship?” he mutters, watching as Rip and Raymond drag the still-senseless Savage into the brig and close the door securely. “Thought there was enough damage you needed someone on the bridge.”

“Ms. Lance, actually,” the captain tells him, dusting his hands off and scowling at Savage’s prone figure through the clear barrier. “With Gideon’s assistance.”

“Huh.” Leonard closes his eyes again. He’s starting to gray out…and he’s pretty sure he’s going to lose the battle against it soon.

“Good,” he slurs. “Good. Most competent person on this…bucket…”

And that’s when he passes out.

* * *

When Leonard wakes up again, there’s no more pain. Except for some residual grogginess, his head is clear, though there’s the sort of distance he associates with good painkillers, the kind he rarely allows himself to take.

And he doesn’t have a right hand.

Leonard tilts his head and studies the stump clinically, glad for the distance granted by drugs, for once. While he was out, someone must have melted what remained of the hand and trimmed the dead flesh away, which wouldn’t have been a pleasant process. The line of amputation otherwise seems to be clean. Odd.

He’s in a medbay-type chair, slightly reclined, and his right arm is resting, lightly strapped down, on a low table next to it. Above the stump, there’s a suspended, thin cylinder that’s glowing glue and pointed downward. He’s only started studying it, though, when Rip bustles into the room, Mick right behind him.

“Ah, you are awake!” The captain nods to him, then starts tapping at a screen nearby. “This will just be a moment, Mr. Snart. We’ve slowed our approach just for you, I’ll have you know. Thought you’d want to go through this first, given your trepidation about the Vanishing Point.”

Leonard frowns at him, but he’s also distracted by Mick, who’s standing there at the foot of the chair, glaring at him in a way in which Leonard’s pretty sure he’s glared at Mick after any number of particularly foolish moves over the years.

“You’re an idiot,” Mick tells his friend, tone harsh in a way that Leonard knows perfectly well hides other feelings.

Well, things may be different now, but Leonard’s not really up for having that talk at the moment. “No argument,” he says, resting his head back against the chair. “Ship OK? I mean, we’re apparently not dead.”

Rip ignores him. Mick scowls. “Not for lack of trying,” he mutters, then repeats: “Idiot.”

Leonard gives him a long-suffering look, then blinks, remembering the state of other things before his own debacle with Savage. “Wait. How’s the kid?”

“Jax? Gone.” Mick waves a hand as Leonard’s eyes widen. “Not like that. Me an’ the professor sent him back to 2016 to save his life. Should work.”

“Good.” Well, at least one of them might get out of this alive.

“Well, not for the professor.” However, Mick continues before Leonard can ask about that. “You’re a lucky bastard, Snart. But you still gotta face the music for being a dumbass.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was a stupid move. I…”

“No. I meant Blondie. She’s gonna be in here next.” Mick grins evilly as Leonard closes his eyes. “Have fun. I suggest groveling.”

“I don’t grovel.” He hates the whine in his own voice, but frankly, it’s been a rough day. Mick just chuckles, shakes his head, and leaves.

“Oh, given Ms. Lance’s ire, I think you might want to consider it.” Rip claps his hands together. “Especially since you’re going to be a captive audience for the next little while. Gideon, start the regeneration process.”

The pen thing starts to glow more. Leonard eyes it, and Rip, with uncertainty. “What do you mean by ‘regeneration?’” He’d make a Doctor Who joke if he was in a better mood. As it is, he’s feeling a quiver of hope he didn’t suspect was possible.

“I took genetic samples from each of you at the start of our voyage,” the captain tells him almost cheerfully, “for this exact eventuality.”

It’s a little disconcerting, that Rip thought it was that possible this would be necessary. A spray of blue light is now emitting from the pen thing, spilling onto the stump of Leonard’s right arm. He stares at it, feeling his skin prickle.

“Why am I only hearing about this now?” he drawls, glancing at the captain.

Rip actually smiles. “Because none of you had lost a limb yet.”

Good point. Leonard watches in fascination as the light grows stronger, and then: “Ow.”

It’s like it’s a 3-D printer, but for flesh and bone. And it seems like it should actually be hurting far more than it is, considering that there’s now a skeletal hand protruding from the blunt termination of his wrist. And the sight’s both creepy and incredible, but it’s not like that for long—next is a network of nerves and blood vessels, muscles, and then skin, over the top of it all like a blank slate, scars he’s had for decades gone as it they’d never been there.

The entire process takes seconds. Leonard’s new fingers twitch involuntarily as he stares at them. He’d forced himself not to think about what life would hold for a thief without his dominant hand, and this…this is a miracle unlooked for. He’s not sure what to do with it.

Rip chuckles, the sound full of pleasure in the tricks his beloved ship has up her metaphorical sleeve. In a smooth motion, he tosses something toward Leonard, and the other man catches it involuntarily—a stress ball, the sort used to exercise injured or weak hands or wrists.

“Stay here until you’re sure you’re steady,” the captain instructs. “You’ve had a great many shocks to your system.” The smile goes a little sly. “And, as Mr. Rory said, you have to face the music.”

Leonard stares after him as he tries to tell his hand to contract its fingers around the ball. He’s still watching the door when Sara stalks in.

He’s already mentally rehearsing what he’s going to say to her, but that all flies out the window when he gets a good look. He’d expected anger and irritation for doing such a dumb thing—and those emotions are there, in spades. He deserves them, and he knows that.

But as she steps closer, he can see Sara’s eyes are red-rimmed, the bright blue even brighter in contrast with her skin. She’s been crying. About him? Or is something else…

“What’s wrong?” he blurts out uncharacteristically.

Sara’s eyes narrow. Oops.

“You’re an idiot,” she tells him, voice matter-of-fact.

“Mick has informed me of that fact.” Leonard pauses, searching for the right thing to say. “I’m sorry?”

Sara rolls her eyes at him, pulling up a chair and taking a seat. “You better be,” she mutters, inspecting his hand, which is resting again on the table. “That’s incredible.”

Leonard tries to get his fingers to flex again and is pleased when they respond, mostly. “Yeah. I’ll admit that. I owe ol’ Rip.”

Sara eyes him again. She’s all too obviously not going to let herself be distracted. “ ‘What’s wrong,’” she repeats carefully. “Did you really mean that?”

Leonard blinks at her. “Yes? Mick said Stein found a way to save Jax. Is there something…”

He lets his voice trail off. Given the look Sara’s giving him, it seems the best thing to do.

She sits back in her chair a moment and studies him, then shakes her head. “Do you have any idea,” she says carefully. “what you looked like when Mick carried you into the medbay earlier?”

“No?”

“You were unconscious, pale as…as ice. And your hand…” Sara takes a deep breath. “It was melting. And there were…rags…of dead skin, blackened flesh, hanging off your arm. It was…I’ve seen some rough things, Leonard. This was…it was bad. And what was there was rough, jagged, and…” She let her voice trail off then. “Gideon sedated you so you wouldn’t wake up in the middle of it, and Stein helped walk me through…cleaning things up.”

Leonard swallows hard. “I’m sorry.”

“Stop saying that.” Sara glares at him. “What on earth possessed you to let Savage out? You kept saying he was a danger to all of us. What…”

“I thought I could get him to tell me what he was up to. ‘Cause it turned out he thought I was there to throw my lot in with his.” He gives her a thin smile as she swears. “I’m a villain, after all.”

“You’re more than that, and everyone on this ship but Vandal Savage knows it.” Sara studies him. “Still a stupid thing to do.”

“Indubitably.”

“You tried to play him.” She shakes her head. “And he used me against you. Yeah, Gideon gave us access to the video records. I heard it. He distracted you.”

The last thing—one of the last things—Leonard wants is for her to blame herself in any shape or form. “If it wasn’t you, it would have been something else,” he admits. “The minute I let him out of the brig. But…”

“But Savage worries you that much.”

“Yeah.” He hesitates. “He came pretty close to confirming that he’s working with the Time Masters, even if I didn’t get him to say it point blank. Did Rip see that?”

Sara sighs. “After the fact, yes. But it didn’t change anything. He thinks this is our only option.” She stands, then, and holds a hand out to him, and Leonard knows he’s (mostly) forgiven. He slips his left hand into hers, levering himself upward with a grunt, and has to pause to fight back vertigo. After a moment, they start back into the hallway, though Sara steers him in the direction of the bridge instead of their room.

“We’re almost to the Vanishing Point,” she says quietly. “I think we both probably want to see what happens.”

Leonard would really like to lie down, which seems silly given that he’s apparently spent a good deal of time unconscious recently. But Sara’s right about that.

“Hear you flew the ship,” he says, trying to make his tone light, glancing over at her.

“Yeah.” Sara’s lips curve. “Not a thing I’d ever thought I’d want to do. But I enjoyed it.”

“Told our captain you were the most competent person on this ship.” He chuckles a little as she lifts an eyebrow at him. “And then I passed out. That’s one way to get the last word around here.”

“Yeah, well, don’t you ever try it on me.”

All of the others are on the bridge, all watching the viewscreen, when they enter. Leonard ignores Raymond’s enthusiastic greeting and requests to see his new hand and nods in acknowledgement of Stein and Kendra’s pleased welcome—and Mick’s still-irritated grunt. He sits with alacrity in one of the jump seats, trying not to look like he’s exhausted from walking just the distance from the medbay to the bridge.

“Is that…” Sara starts, stepping closer to where Rip is sitting, staring out the viewscreen. Leonard looks, too. The odd, complicated jumble of black structures there at the supposed edge of the timeline is like nothing he’s ever seen before, but…

He shakes his head roughly as a shiver runs down his spine.

“Welcome to the Vanishing Point,” Rip tells them.

And Leonard feels…

The closest thing he can think of is the start of a panic attack. The breathless feeling of _something-not-right-something-horribly-wrong_ , the way his heart starts racing, the chill that overtakes him. He drags in a deep breath, trying to regain control. None of the others seem to notice…well, except for Mick, who’s watching him with narrowed eyes.

 “I can't believe we made it,” Stein is saying.

Sara hums in agreement, then pauses. There’s a slight hitch in the ship’s motion, and Leonard feels it too, but he’s focusing too much on regulating his breathing to say anything.

“Did you just lose control of the ship?” she asks.

“Yeah, that might have something to do with us being the most wanted time criminals in all of history.” Rip hops up from the captain’s chair, smiling as if he hadn’t just said something rather alarming.

As he does so, a man’s face appears on their viewscreen, stern and unfamiliar.

“Timeship Waverider, we've taken control of your guidance systems,” he announces. “Disable your weapons and prepare to be boarded.”

Rip chuckles. “Oh, it's good to be home.”

The other Time Master pauses. “Captain Hunter,” he says. “This is…unexpected.”

“Well, I have a reputation to maintain, don't I?” Rip smiles at him. “And I hereby request an immediate assembly of the Time Council in accordance with General Order 52.”

“So you've returned to answer for your crimes?”

“No. I'm here to justify them.”

* * *

They’re at the Vanishing Point now. There’s only so much they can do, even if Leonard’s right and this is all going to go downhill fast.

Sara makes sure she has an array of knives tucked around her person—but then, she always does. She doesn’t miss that Leonard immediately goes to the armory to find his cold gun, double-checking it before holstering it securely at his side.

But then they both return to their room. If everything does all to hell, they want to be together.

The others had disappeared to their own various pursuits when Rip had left the ship. Sara sighs as she looks around the room, trying to figure out if there’s anything more they can do. She hates waiting.

Leonard, who’s still edgy in a way that’s clearly nerves, scoops their deck of cards up from the desk and waves it at her. And it seems like there would be worse things.

It’s not a good game, though. He’s jumpy and unhappy, and he keeps flexing the fingers of his right hand like he can’t believe they’re there. For her part, Sara keeps seeing, in her mind’s eye, what Leonard had looked like when she’d entered the brig only…what, a few hours ago? They’re both distracted, and they’re not playing well, and…

Leonard’s head jerks up again, the third time in maybe a minute.

“Did you hear that?” he asks, eyes darting around.

She hadn’t, actually. “Don't try to distract me.”

Another moment passes. Leonard suddenly gets to his feet, crossing to the door, listening intently. “We need to find somewhere to hide.”

Sara sits down her cards and cautiously joins him. “Could we fight our way out?” she asks carefully. She can’t hear whatever he seems to be hearing. Which is odd, actually.

But Leonard shakes his head emphatically. “No,” he says, then reaches out to take her hand. “C’mon.”

Sara lets him take it but raises her voice. “Gideon, warn the others!”

Only silence greets her words.


	13. I'll Be Dreaming of the Future

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And now we start the "Destiny" chapters! There will be four of them. I've been planning these a long time, and there are many changes coming to fruition. Thanks to LarielRomeniel for the beta!
> 
> Sorry about the lines midway through. AO3 was being weird.

The space beneath the Waverider’s floor is deep but narrow. Sara, her face buried in Leonard’s collarbone, tightens her arms around him as they lean into each other, trying to keep each other upright despite the strain on legs and backs. Leonard’s forced to stoop just a little, and Sara’s willing to bet it must be hell on his back, but his breathing is nearly silent as he holds her there and the Time Masters’ lackeys stomp back and forth above.

It’s a good thing, she thinks again, that they’re together and used to being in each other’s space at this point. If they were still just friends, revolving around each other and keeping their distance with flirting and innuendo, this could be pretty damned awkward.

It’s an interminable amount of time later, but eventually the sound of footsteps fades. They wait longer. Finally, Sara feels Leonard lift his head, listening. Then she feels him sigh and pull away.

She lets him go with faint reluctance, watching as he climbs up onto the slightly raised platform where they’d entered this hidden area. He pushes up the floor panel, glancing around, and then clambers out. Sara moves toward him, accepting his hand to climb out, letting out a long breath as she glances around the silent bridge.

“How did you even know that was down there?” she asks Leonard, who’s looking around restlessly.

“When Rip first recruited us, I made it my business to case every square inch of this tub in the event there was something worth stealing,” he tells her, looking around, then glance back. “There wasn't.”

He pauses, and Sara lets a smile tug at her lips, at odds with the position in which they find themselves. “I hope,” she says delicately, “that there were other worthwhile things.”

The corner of his mouth ticks upward too, but only momentarily. Leonard’s expression goes serious, deadly serious, and there’s something in his eyes Sara doesn’t think she’s ever seen before. Not when they were first stuck in Harmony Falls. Not even when they found out about Mick as Chronos.

“Should we get out of here?” he asks quietly, his tone a bit…

Yes. That’s it. He sounds…broken.

Sara stares back at him. “Wait,” she says cautiously, “what about the team?”

Leonard’s eyes, she thinks, are tormented. And he’s acting far more hesitant than she’d expected. “I…” He pauses. “I…after what Mick said. About the Time Masters. Do you think…is there even anything we can do for them?”

Sara, taken aback, shakes her head in disbelief. “Leonard,” she says carefully, “I…would you just leave Mick? The others?”

Her lover glances away, mouth tight. “If the Time Masters are half as twisted as Mick said, there's an excellent chance Mick is no longer Mick.” He lets out a long breath and appears about to say more, then stops, watching her.

Sara’s struck by the thought that he wants her to convince him otherwise, the better angels of his nature warring against a lifetime of being a survivor. The Leonard she’d met in the beginning, icy and cynical, might have run with barely a backward glance.

This is not that Leonard.

But he’s terrified, she can see it in the tightness around his eyes, the stiffness of his movements as he looks around the bridge. Sara frowns, stepping closer. He’s one of the bravest men she knows, and this is uncharacteristic, now, in more ways than one.

What’s going on?

* * *

It feels like a panic attack again. And while that’s probably even pretty justified, given their circumstances, Leonard’s having a particularly hard time getting a grip—and it’s not like he can go somewhere quiet now for a bit, to try to get his breathing and his racing heart under control.

And Sara’s staring at him with an odd mix of understanding and dismay at his words, clearly wondering what’s going on.

“I'm not going anywhere,” she says firmly, then waves a hand. “And even if we wanted to, we're in a hangar surrounded by an entire armada of timeships.”

 _Getouttahere-getouttahere-get **her** outtahere_...

Leonard tries to take a deep breath. He’s not entirely successful. “It's the Waverider,” he points out, hearing the ragged sound of his own voice. “We've got guns. We could blast our way out.”

Sara’s chin goes up. “This isn't 'Bonnie and Clyde,'” she informs him, disappointment thick in her voice. “And I'm not going anywhere without the rest of the team.” A pause. “What about Kendra and Ray? Their son...”

He can’t let that kid grow up without his parents. He can’t. But...

“Sara...” he says, hearing his own voice as if it’s miles away.

And right over the top of it, a snarl, also in his own voice, if a vastly different tone. _Maybe I didn't make myself clear._

The fingers of his right hand twitch, as they’ve been doing since it was rebuilt. Toward his cold gun, still holstered at his side.

 _You idiot!_ A voice, suddenly clear as day in his head, hisses. It’s also his voice. But also…different.

Sara’s eyes widen, but Leonard only sees that for a second before he folds into one of the jump seats, eyes squeezed shut, shaking his head. He puts his hands on his knees, fingers contracted and nails digging into his jeans, and takes a deep breath.

“What. The. Fuck,” he mutters.

He hears Sara step closer. “Are you OK?” she asks quietly.

“Don’t know.” Leonard waits another moment, then opens his eyes. "I think so.”

Somehow, things seem clearer now, without the sort of weird echoes he was getting before. After a moment, he gets back to his feet, shaking his new hand roughly, cursing its recalcitrant nature.

Then he looks at Sara, whose expression is very carefully blank.

Would he, in different circumstances, have pulled his gun on her, to try to force her to get them both out of here safely? He’s not pleased to admit that he probably would have. Between the things Mick has told him about the Time Masters and his strong conviction that this whole thing is going _bad_ , Alexa bad, fast, all the traits that make him a survivor might have led him to do something he’d later regret, just because at least he'd be alive to regret it.

He’s a survivor.

Just like Vandal Savage said.

But he’s also a survivor who loves Sara Lance, and he’s trying to be a better man.

“Sorry,” he says quietly. And Sara nods.

Then the old-fashioned phone in Rip’s office rings.

* * *

Sara’s so grateful to hear Gideon’s voice that she feels tears prickle at her eyes. So, she closes them, taking a deep breath, listening to the AI’s calm voice as Gideon explains their plight and that of the others in more detail.

She can also hear Leonard’s still slightly uneven breathing, the panic he’s still fighting to control. Sara hadn’t missed how his hand had twitched toward his gun, a survivor’s reflex she’s sure wasn’t fully within his control.

She’s positive, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that Leonard wouldn’t hurt her. But she also remembers the terror in his eyes, the tightly pent-in fear and the lifetime of doing what it takes to survive. And there’s more going on, too. His conviction that their strings are being pulled. His odd reactions to various occurrences. His surety that something, someone, else is messing with him.

By the time Gideon’s speaking over the ship’s comms again, he looks a little better, moving closer to Sara, who’s glad for his presence despite the lingering tension. She leans into his shoulder a little as he stops by her side, hearing and feeling his faint sigh as he relaxes a fraction himself.

“Ms. Lance is correct,” the AI is telling them. “We’re surrounded by timeships. However…” She pauses. “I…and Captain Hunter, of course…may have come up with measures that could eliminate them, if needed. For a time.”

“Why, Gideon,” Leonard drawls, sounding far more like himself. “Are you suggesting…sabotage?”

The pause is just lengthy enough that it’s clear that’s precisely what the AI is suggesting. And she never does answer that question in so many words. “There are enough devices in the armory, in the container labeled ‘experimental overrides,’ to adequately derail every timeship in the armada for a time,” she announces. “Captain Hunter thought they might be useful one day. You will simply have to retrieve and set them before placing them on the ships.”

“The ships,” Sara repeats. “The ones all around us.”

“The ones that could blow us up if we twitch,” Leonard adds sardonically. “Oh. Easy.”

“You will simply have to be your sneaky self and watch Ms. Lance’s back, Mr. Snart.” Sara hides a smile as Leonard blinks at Gideon’s comeback, which is a bit more openly snide than the AI usually gets. “No one is on these ships, however, and no one is looking for you here. As no one could find you on this ship, they will have presumed you have already fled and are at large, probably looking for your teammates. And they presume that I, as you said, am no longer…‘ _alive_.’”

There’s no self-pity in the AI’s voice, but in a way, that just makes her matter-of-fact statement even more poignant. Sara glances at Leonard, seeing the same mix of sympathy and concentration, but he doesn’t speak. Not yet.

So Sara does.

“But, Gideon,” she says slowly, “we don’t want to leave the team, even if we can get that breathing room. You can’t _want_ us to abandon Captain Hunter. We…”

“I don’t want you to abandon anyone, Ms. Lance,” Gideon says crisply, cutting in. “But once you get enough breathing room, for lack of a better term, to make a time jump, you can, as they say…fake them out.”

Sara considers that as Leonard hums thoughtfully.

“Not quite following,” she admits. “Help me here, Gideon. It’s been a rough day.”

“You don’t have to jump forward,” the AI tells her. “Nor backward. You…”

It clicks. “…can just go somewhere else in the same time.” Sara grins, getting it. “Like out of this hangar, elsewhere in the Vanishing Point, before they notice.”

“Indeed.”

“Gideon,” Leonard cuts in now. “Where are these devices?”

The AI tells him succinctly, and Leonard departs, as Sara studies the diagram of the Vanishing Point that Gideon has pulled up for them, pinpointing the location of the cellblock where the others are being held. By the time Leonard has returned, hefting the crate and placing it carefully on the holotable, they have at least a working plan.

They open the crate, and Sara pulls out one of the disks within, considering it. “We just need to stick one of these to each ship?” she asks Gideon. “Really?”

“Yes, Ms. Lance. They use adapted sound waves,” Gideon tells them, then pauses. “You can, should you wish, pick a song. That might be even more distracting that simply random noise.”

Sara looks at the disk, then lifts an eyebrow, looking at Leonard. He smirks a little, regarding her in return.

“I think we could pick something with adequate profanity,” he drawls, shrugging, “or…”

“Or,” Sara tells him in return, grinning. “I think I have the perfect idea.”

* * *

Gideon is right. No one seems to notice as Sara and Leonard—Sara placing the disks, Leonard watching her back—skulk across the floor of the hangar, carefully making sure that every ship has one of the overrides.

“This is a bad plan,” Leonard mutters uneasily, turning from side to side, pointing his cold gun everywhere, watching everything.

“It's Gideon's,” Sara shoots back, slapping another disk down against the side of a ship. She makes sure it’s set, then moves on, carefully, Leonard keeping pace.

“You're not helping your argument,” he mutters. But he doesn’t fool Sara, who smiles to herself as she glances around, setting her course.

“We need to finish putting these on the ships and get back to the Waverider,” she says quietly.

“Well,” Leonard motions with his gun, a Snart smirk hovering at his lips despite everything. “Carry on.”

And she does.

* * *

Leonard, despite his earlier conviction (unreasonable, he’d admit) that they’d be able to “Bonnie-and-Clyde” their way out of the Vanishing Point, is skeptical as they return to the Waverider. However, his pessimism is conflicting with Sara’s confidence, and gradually, she starts to infect him with it, too.

Is it really possible they might pull this off? Sprawled on the floor and watching her with hooded eyes, Leonard actually feels a faint stir of hope. If they can just get the team back…if Mick is still Mick…if…if…if…

He doesn’t realize he’s been tapping his ring restlessly against a metal beam until Sara sighs, drawing his attention to where she sits across from him.

“Can you stop doing that?” she asks wearily, then gets up and heading onto the bridge proper as he pulls his hand away from the beam. “Why did you start wearing that thing, anyways?”

She knows the ring’s story already—she’d been there when, while moving his things into her room, he’d found the small piece of silver in a pocket. He’d told her about the warehouse in Freeport, the first job he’d ever planned with Mick, both of them still in their teens. Leonard had only recently dropped out of school, giving up on reintegrating back into so-called normal society after his stints in juvie, and Mick was already unapologetically a criminal; still, Len’s experience had been limited to jobs with Lewis and Mick’s to basic smash-and-grabs.

Leonard had known that he was a better planner than Lewis, even at that age. This had been his first chance to prove to himself that he could strike out on his own and do better than his father ever had.

Except that, for all his planning, everything had gone sideways.

He holds up his hand, studying the ring, thinking about how they’d just gotten into the warehouse between the shift changes, through a rarely used door. It wasn’t so long after a big delivery from a jewelry wholesaler—nothing that would make them rich, but Mick knew someone who’d buy even good costume jewelry at decent prices.

Leonard had just cracked one crate, though, double-checking its contents, when Mick had tripped the shiny new security system that hadn’t there even a day or two before. Len had grabbed a box and bolted, and while at least the two of them had made it out safely, all they’d come away with were a few necklaces (which Leonard had let Mick take to his fence) and the silver ring.

At the time, Leonard was still so slight and scrawny that the ring had been big on even his ring finger. He’d wound some string around the back of it and worn it anyway, as a…

“It's a reminder,” he says, hoisting himself off the floor and ambling toward her, turning his hand and watching the light catch the silver surface. “That even the best laid plans can go sideways.”

Sara made a thoughtful noise and reaches out, gently taking his hand. It’s the sort of casual touch he’s still really not used to, but it’s OK with her. Nice, even. Her hands are small, strong, and calloused, familiar in so many different ways at this point, and the touch is steadying.

“You thinking this is going to go sideways?” she asks, glancing up at him.

Leonard lets his fingers fold around hers. “Don’t know. The best chance we got, but…I still have a weird feeling there’s more going than we know. And I don’t like it.” He gives her a wry smile. “Not real keen on the idea of trading my life for nothing.”

At least Sara’s going to be the one who stays on the ship in this plan, he thinks, though he doesn’t say it aloud. If the worst happens, she could get out of here.

He doesn’t say it, but he’s pretty sure she hears it anyway. Sara gives him a faint smile in return, leaning closer.

“Well,” she says firmly, “you better not. You’ve got better things to do with that life.”

“With you?”

It’s meant as a quip, but the question comes out quieter and more solemn than he plans. Sara’s eyes go more serious too, and she studies him a moment. They’ve avoided talking about the future, not until Savage is defeated, but that doesn’t mean neither of them have thought of it, and…

“The Time Drive is back online,” Gideon cuts in neatly. And it’s probably just as well; this isn’t the time or the place, but Leonard sighs as he straightens from his lean. Sara squeezes his hand before they move apart, her to the captain’s chair and him to a jump seat.

The Waverider lifts smoothly into the air and rockets out of the hangar. Leonard watches Sara take a deep breath, nod to herself, and then lift her voice and order, “Gideon….now!”

And the ship jumps--to the other side of the Vanishing Point, close to the cell block where the others are being held. Sara brings it down fast and quiet, and Leonard’s already out of his seat, checking his gun and throwing one more look her way.

“I’ve activated the overrides,” Gideon announces. “And they are working quite well, if I do say so myself.” She pauses. “Would you like to hear?”

Leonard pauses as Sara glances at him. “Sure.”

“… _singing a song. Don't mess around, you just got to be strong Just stop_ …”

Sara laughs, but Leonard can’t resist, despite the time constraints. He takes a few steps to the captain’s chair and leans over, kissing her firmly as the Captain and Tennille sing. Sara laughs again, against his lips, and curves a hand around the back of his head to hold him there.

“ ‘ _Cause I really love you. Stop! I'll be thinking of you_.”

“Be careful,” she tells him breathlessly as they break the kiss, and Leonard turns for the hatch.

“You know it.”

“ _Look in my heart…And let love…keep us together_ …”

* * *

* * *

 

* * *

As soon as Leonard’s off the ship, the Waverider rises again, looping around and rising into the air. He’s not watching, though, immediately heading for the door Gideon’s schematics had told them would be nearby.

It’s locked, but application of a cold gun blast and then a firm boot to the center send the door crashing inward. The guard inside only gets off one shot, which Leonard dodges, before a punch lays him out on the floor. Then Leonard bolts up the stairs, gun primed and ready, taking out a few more startled guards before he reaches the level he’s looking for.

As he turns into the hallway that should lead him to the cell block, he hears voices ahead.

“…we've calculated when the Waverider is headed.”

“Past or future?”

“The present.”

Leonard smirks as he hears the Waverider’s guns fire outside, shaking the building as Sara gives him a particularly violent distraction. Striding forward, he fires his cold gun at the soldier who turns toward him, then slams the weapon into the head of the robed older man, stepping aside as he falls to the floor.

“Somebody order up a rescue?” he drawls, glancing around at his teammates in their cells, frowning as he realizes that someone…two someones are missing.

Stein sighs, relief and pain in the sound. “Mr. Snart, your timing is impeccable.”

Leonard, though, sees Raymond’s eyes widen as the scientist looks past him. “Or not!”

He spins, aiming the cold gun, just as Chronos…no, it’s Mick, it’s always Mick, even in that armor…pauses in the doorway. Then the armored figure starts forward, slowly, gun aimed at Leonard, inexorably.

“Put the gun down, Mick,” he says. An order and a plea, both. Can his friend hear it?

But Mick doesn’t listen, moving until his gun is nearly right in Leonard’s face, and another man in robes moves quickly into the room behind him, circling to the right, barely tossing Leonard a quick glance before focusing on Mick.

“Chronos,” he orders. “Fire!”

A pause. And then: “Sure thing,” Chronos rumbles in a tone that’s all Mick, whipping his gun around and firing at the Time Master, who’s so startled that he doesn’t even try to get out of the way. The energy bolt crashes into him, and he topples to the floor as Mick pulls off his helmet, advancing toward him.

“If I recall, I made you a certain promise,” he informs the fallen man.

“No, I beg of you. No!”

Leonard makes himself watch, but then turns away before Mick can see the look on his face. He hits the panel at the side of Rip’s cell before spinning toward Raymond’s. “Where’s Kendra?” he asks as he opens the door, heart sinking at the look on the scientist’s face.

“They took her. They gave her to Savage!” Raymond’s voice is both furious and heartbroken as he stumbles out the door. “She fought, but there were too many. I…”

“We’ll get her back,” Leonard tells him, watching Mick open Stein’s door and help the man inside out. “And where is our least-favorite psychopath?”

“On his way to kill my family,” Rip says dully, approaching them. “You were right, Mr. Snart. The Time Masters are the ones who put Savage in power. And everything we’ve done has been helping them.” He shakes his head. “They’ve been doing more than pulling our strings. They’ve been setting our course. All along. Perhaps our entire lives.”

Leonard freezes, staring at him. For all his cynicism and suspicion of the Time Masters, there’s still a part of him that’s stunned to hear all those suspicions confirmed. “What?”

Another volley of fire from the Waverider shakes the walls, then, and Rip shakes his head roughly.

“Back to the ship, first,” he says. “We have a lot to talk about…but first we need to get out of here.”


	14. And Hoping You'll Be By My Side

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Second "Destiny" chapter. Pieces are coming together. Many thanks to LarielRomeniel for the beta.

Since Rip, Raymond and Mick seem like they might have the better chance at anything having to do with the ship and getting away from the Time Masters, Leonard takes the responsibility of getting Stein to the medbay. The older man is trying to move as best he can, but he’s clearly suffering, and Leonard can’t help a prickle of sympathy.

Once the professor is settled into one of the chair-bed things, with an IV of medication Gideon has prescribed to at least keep him more comfortable, Leonard hesitates, uncertain. He wants to go find Sara, but leaving Stein alone to contemplate his plight seems…well, cold, even to him.

“Anything help you other than getting the kid back?” he drawls uncomfortably, sidling toward the chair. The ship shakes a little as he does so.

Stein opens an eye and regards him with an expression that’s understanding and almost kind. It occurs to Leonard that while he may have been the one on this ship who’s changed the most, the professor has changed too. He’s a far cry from the arrogant man who’d scorned Leonard and Mick back on that rooftop in Central City.

“No, sadly, Mr. Snart,” he says with a sigh. “It’s just a matter of time, I fear. And now, with Captain Hunter’s revelations about the nature of our quest itself…it seems that it’s all been for nothing.” He shakes his head. “At least Jefferson is well out of it.”

Leonard wants, no, needs, to find out more about that himself, but while they’re still in the process of getting the hell outta Dodge, it seems best not to storm onto the bridge demanding answers. As the ship jolts again, he decides to sit down next to the other man. Stein watches him do so.

“Mr. Snart,” he asks after another moment, “may I ask you a question?”

The ship shakes, lurching. Leonard decides he’d rather be distracted. “Shoot.”

“Back in the beginning. When Captain Hunter invited us on this whole…adventure.” He stops, then continues again as Leonard continues to regard him. “Why did you decide to go?”

It is, truthfully, a good question. Leonard can remember how scornful he’d been of the whole thing, at least on the surface he’d presented to the others. And it seems like the least he can do is to offer the truth to the man before him, who, it seems, is all too likely to be giving his life on this mission.

After a moment’s thought, he starts to speak, carefully. “I’ll deny it if you tell the others,” he warns Stein, who rolls his eyes but also inclines his head. “But I do care about my city.”

“At least, insomuch as no one could hurt it but you, eh?” But the professor waves a hand when Leonard gives him a weary look. “I’m sorry. Carry on.”

After a minute, he does. “I did wonder if I could…” He thinks of Sara’s words back then. “…change my fate. Either by changing the past or, as it turns out, becoming…a rather different person.” He shrugs. “And I got even more of a chance for that than I’d expected.”

Stein tilts his head and offers up some of his occasional uncanny understanding. “Your time in 1958?”

“Yeah.” Leonard hesitates again. “Amazing what a clean slate can do.”

Stein’s closed his eyes again. “Hmm,” he muses. “I daresay Ms. Lance’s presence in your life didn’t hurt either. The love of a good woman…or rather, a good person…has saved many a lost soul. Clarissa…in some ways, I think she effectively saved me.” He sighs. “I hope I get to see her again. At this point, however, I rather doubt it.”

Leonard’s not sure what to do with that. “C’mon, professor. I thought cynicism was _my_ hallmark.”

“As you’ve said, Mr. Snart, people change.” But Stein shakes his head. “Still. I suppose that there is always hope.” He smiles a little. “In a world with time travel, is not anything truly possible?”

“And in a world with burning, nuclear-powered heroes,” Leonard tells him seriously. “And speedsters. And…”

“…and where Captain Cold is a hero.”

Leonard frowns at the older man, but Stein just chuckles. “Don’t deny it,” he tells Leonard mock-seriously. “Your actions prove otherwise.”

“Eehhhh.” He decides not to argue. “You get back to 2016, professor, don’t tell Barry Allen and his ilk that.”

Stein chuckles, closing his eyes. “I do believe I shall have to try to survive this, Mr. Snart, just to collect on all these favors you’re going to be owing me.” He reopens one eye and regards Leonard. “Please tell the others that I will endeavor _not_ to blow up while I’m here.”

Leonard feels his own lips twitch at the words. “Appreciate that, professor.”

“As well you should.”

* * *

Despite the others’ reassurances, Sara’s still relieved when Leonard finally ambles onto the bridge. He catches her eye and she catches his, and that’s enough for now.

“Professor's in the medbay,” he drawls, approaching the others. “Promises not to blow up while he's on board, which I thought was considerate.”

Rip sighs, moving toward the holotable. “Yeah, the professor's condition is the least of our worries, I'm afraid.”

That seems a bit callous, but as Sara frowns, Ray chimes in.

“Yeah, much to my chagrin, it turns out everything we've done, maybe even our whole lives,” he says woefully, “has been determined by the Time Masters.”

“What?” Sara asks incredulously, leaning forward. She glances at Leonard, who leans on a jump seat, eyes sweeping the room. He doesn’t look surprised. Instead, he wears an expression of intense concentration.

Granted, he’s been insisting for a while that the Time Masters are pulling their strings, but this…this is more than that. Those words--which no one is arguing with--suggest that it goes back farther and deeper, that…

No. No, Sara doesn’t want to think about that right now. As it is, her stomach is twisting, thinking about the choices she’s made and the places she’s been…the people she’s hurt…

She doesn’t look at Leonard now. She can’t.

“The Time Masters have this thing called the Oculus, which allows them not only to gaze into the future, but to engineer it,” Rip tells them resignedly. “Yes, Mr. Snart. As I said before, you were right.”

But Ray speaks again before Leonard can respond. “A future where I'm dead.” Sara’s heart goes out to him as he closes his eyes, swallowing. “Guy, you gotta get Kendra back. I mean, for her sake too, but Alex…”

“We won’t leave your kid without a family, Haircut,” Mick cuts in roughly. “No matter what.” He shrugs uncomfortably as everyone looks at him. “Don’t know that we’re what you and Bird Girl would want for uncles and aunt, but I s’pose we’re better than nothing. And, hey, Snart and I know what _not_ to do, anyway.”

Ray looks like he’s going to cry, or hug somebody, but the captain speaks up again, shaking his head.

“This is a lovely moment,” he says, just a touch acerbically, “truly. But in my opinion, Dr. Palmer's death is not part of their plan.”

“Not reassuring,” Ray mutters, then “Ow!”

Mick, apparently deciding that enough sentiment was enough, had leaned over and whacked him in the arm. Then he turns challengingly to Rip.

“You sayin’ the Time Masters wanted me to do that?” he growls.

Rip gives him a long-suffering look. “What I'm saying is that they've been engineering our lives to move in very specific directions,” he says. “And we are playing out that script even now.”

The Gambit? The Pit? All the people she’s killed? Sara closes her eyes, then opens them, rising from the captain’s chair and moving toward them. Her eyes catch Leonard’s very briefly, and she can see similar thoughts there. Did the Time Masters make sure he’d be a criminal no matter what, with the perfect skills to do what they wanted on this mission? Did he ever have a choice? Did they create Lewis? Or Barry Allen to prod him down another road?

And what about _them_ …

Before she speaks, though, he does.

“But they’re not controlling everything,” he says, staring at Rip. “And we can still surprise them.” They’re statements, not questions. “They didn’t know that I’d left the ship in Harmony Falls.” He glances at Mick. “We _know_ the Time Masters didn’t know I’d been left behind too.”

Rip blinks, considering that, and Mick grunts thoughtfully in agreement.

“Yeah,” he says. “They told me just what to do. And things were all different from what they said.

Ray, looking a bit encouraged, nods. “So they didn’t have anything to do with what happened to any of us in 1958.”

Sara looks at Leonard, who’s looking steadily back at her. This is still disconcerting and awful, but at least…at least they have that.

“No. They can’t control thoughts, and they can’t control feelings,” Rip tells him, almost gently. “And…they’re not in there all the time, fiddling with every little detail.” He shakes his head. “It’s a rather jarring experience, the Oculus. It’d be like performing delicate surgery with a hacksaw.”

“So, it seems they sort of…set the program and let it run, with occasional course corrections.” Ray looks thoughtful.

Sara takes a deep breath. “Well, this is interesting…and encouraging in a few ways, anyway, for what that’s worth. But we still need to figure out what to do.” She puts her hands on the holotable, scanning the others. “So, we can go to 2016, but that might be what the Time Masters want. Or we can go get Kendra...”

“Which could also be what they want,” Leonard mutters.

“Then we need to do what they don't want,” Ray says, determination brightening his voice. “If the Oculus is what they're using to control us, then we need to destroy it.”

Sara nods, but…

“No,” Leonard cuts in, getting to his feet and approaching. “Or not just that, anyway.” He takes a deep breath as the others look at him. “Look. They’re expecting us to act according to our natures. Right? That’s the whole point. They did their best to create those natures.”

“Yes?” Ray looks inquiringly at Rip, then back at Leonard. “But…”

“And the Time Bastards just made sure to give their biggest rebel, a bunch of heroes—and me and Mick—the information that they control time.” Leonard tilts his head. “What do you _think_ they think is going to happen?”

* * *

For some reason, as soon as he’s delivered those words, something in Leonard relaxes. Not entirely, but a little. Like he’s passed a test. Delivered a message.

It’s an odd sensation, but he decides not to examine it for the moment.

“I acted against my nature—what had been my nature—when I left the ship in Harmony Falls,” he says, looking at Sara. “And they didn’t expect it or plan for it. What, now, would they not expect us to do?”

Sara hums thoughtfully. Raymond shrugs. “Give up and go back home,” he points out. “But we can’t do that.”

“Well.” Rips frowns. “I do think that going back to the place we just escaped from would seem rather unexpected.”

Leonard snorts. “Not with this group,” he says. “Seriously, Rip?”

The captain gives him the ghost of a smile. “True, indeed, Mr. Snart. But we still need to get rid of this Oculus, if we’re to have any hope of truly changing things.”

Raymond’s looking off into the distance. “I’ve spent my whole life wanting to be a hero,” he says quietly. “A hero…a hero is brave. Helps others. Makes a difference. If I can do that, to make a better life for my son…”

“So, basically, the Time Bastards would expect you to do some shit like dying while trying to blow up the Oculus.” Leonard nods when the scientist gives him a startled glance. “So, you can’t do that. You’ve gotta be selfish, Raymond.” He glances at Rip. “Can you take him back to the Refuge?”

“No!” Raymond says, even as Rip considers and nods.

“And the rest of us, Mr. Snart?” he says with resignation, but also with a small smile on his face. “As you just might be onto something here?”

Leonard can appreciate what it’s cost the captain to say that…and maybe Rip’s arrogance was something the Time Masters were counting on too. He gives the other man an understanding smirk in return.

“The rest of us…” he says slowly. “What if we split up? Rip, they’ll figure you’ll go back to the Vanishing Point. It’s personal. You and…and Sara and maybe the professor, if he’s up for it…go after Kendra.”

“Wait a minute…” Sara starts as Rip lifts an eyebrow.

“And what are we going to use to do that?” he asks drily, spreading his hands out before him. “One ship.”

“The Pilgrim’s ship is still at that old outpost, right? Leonard looks around at Mick. “You hid it.”

His friend grunts thoughtfully. “Yeah. I could fly that. Good ship.”

“Great. Then, Mick and I will blow up the Oculus.” Leonard ignores the immediate arguments. “They won’t expect the criminals to be playing heroes.”

Mick nods. “And I like blowing stuff up.”

“You’re not…”

“Mr. Snart…”

“He’s got a point.” Raymond shrugs as everyone looks at him. “We can make it work. We’re Legends, right? But one change.” He holds up a hand. “I get your meaning, Snart, about going against what they expect. But…I won’t do any good to the mission if I’m back at the Refuge. I want to go with you.”

Leonard regards him a moment, then glances at the captain. “Rip,” he drawls. “What was the Boy Scout here doing? When…What did you see in this Oculus thing?”

Rip hesitates, thinking. “He was…” His eyes widen. “It was an explosion. How did I forget that?” He looks at Raymond. “You were working on something. And there was light…you started to come apart…”

“I think that’s enough,” Sara breaks in as Raymond winces. “Rip, even if we—or some of us—return to the Vanishing Point, can they mess with us there?”

The captain shakes his head. “No, Druce told me that the Oculus' ability to control our actions doesn't work in the Vanishing Point, most likely because the Vanishing Point itself exists outside of time.”

“And we need to move,” Leonard says firmly. “If you want to have any chance to save Kendra. And your family.”

Rip looks a bit wild-eyed, but Gideon cuts neatly in, her voice calm.

“I apologize, Captain,” she says, “but I’ve already diverted us toward the outpost. Mr. Snart’s plan is a good one, and I chose to…anticipate your orders.” She pauses as Rip collapses into a jump seat and Mick barks out a laugh. “May I also point out that you have always encouraged such independence, but…a time ship AI knows what it is to be controlled by the Time Masters. I wish to help, although they are not all like me.”

Rip rubs a hand over his face. “Ah, Gideon. _No one_ is quite like you.”

“Thank you, Captain. I shall take that as a compliment.”

“OK, then,” Ray says firmly, turning for the corridors. “I’m going to go talk to Stein, figure out how we’ll need to destroy this Oculus wellspring. Rip, we’ll need what you know.”

The captain shakes his head but gets to his feet. “This is not how I envisioned this going at all,” he comments with a sigh, then smiles. “Which just may be precisely why it works.” He glances at Mick. “Mr. Rory. You have experience as a time ship captain—and a reputation as a sneaky and very effective one. Would you work with Gideon to plot a good intercept course for Savage?”

Mick shrugs, but Leonard thinks he almost looks pleased at the words and the request. “Sure.”

“Thank you.”

Leonard stands with Sara and Mick, watching as Rip and Raymond leave, then looks over at his friend. _“_ You want help?” he drawls, folding his arms. “Might not know how to fly a time ship, but I know how to plan.”

Mick’s already deftly pulled some schematics up on the holotable. He glances over and snorts. “No,” he says, “I want you two to go get your shit together before we all trot off to hunt psychopaths or blow stuff up.” He looks back to the display. “So, get. I got this.”

“ _We_ got this,” Gideon announces. “Mr. Rory, please take a look at the path skirting Jurgens Ridge. I believe…”

She continues, and Leonard blinks at his old friend, then looks at Sara.

She gives him a slight smile and shrugs.

“OK, then,” he mutters, turning aside and heading for their room. “I know when I’m not needed.”

“Don’t whine, Mr. Snart,” Gideon tells him snippily, stopping her comments to Mick for a moment. “It’s not a becoming trait.”

Well, he thinks with resignation as he saunters for the door, at least the comment makes Sara laugh.

* * *

“I can’t believe we were just…dismissed…like that,” Sara says with faint amusement as they enter their quarters. She looks from side to side restlessly, then turns to face Leonard. “I mean, I know my skills lie mainly in hitting things until they stop moving, but…I would have liked to do something.”

Her words get a slight smile, although it’s a distracted one. “Got the feeling maybe we already did,” he drawls, leaning against the bed and watching her. “But…you OK?”

Sara laughs a little, knowing that the sound isn’t very sincere. “Well. I’m trying not to think about it too much,” she says, boosting herself up onto the bed and looking down at her hands. “I don’t know how profound the directions the Time Masters steered us in are, and I don’t think I want to know. I know I still feel responsible for everything I’ve done. And it still keeps me up at night.”

After a moment, she hears a sigh and glances over at Leonard. Her lover is staring off into the distance, a complicated expression on his face. It’s melancholy and uncertain, very unlike anything he shows the world, and something turns over in Sara’s heart as she watches him.

“Len,” she says quietly, putting a hand out and resting it on his shoulder, “what are you thinking?”

Leonard shrugs, after a moment, then looks at her.

“It wasn’t just a script,” he asks, a still, opaque expression on his face. “Was it?”

Oh.

Sara tightens her grip on his shoulder, pulling him toward her, and after a moment’s resistance, Leonard allows her to guide him. After a moment, he’s facing her, although his eyes are still darting around and not meeting hers. He exudes uneasiness and apprehension, and she can see and feel how stiff his shoulders are.

“I thought we agreed that the Time Masters didn’t even know we were there, in 1958,” she says. “When our relationship…changed. Or evolved. They weren’t pulling our strings.” She reaches up and rests a hand against his jawline, feeling the tension there. “And…Rip said, they can’t change feelings.” She takes a deep breath. “Everything we feel…it’s real.”

Finally, Leonard’s eyes meet hers, heartbreakingly wary.

“Yeah?” he asks quietly. “And what…” He pauses. “I’m not a good person, Sara. Not the sort you should…care for. I…”

Sara huffs out a breath. “Stop…listening…to Lewis,” she tells him sharply, shaking his shoulder a little, then feels guilty as he flinches. “He’s been dead for months, or longer depending on how you look at it. Stop giving his voice space in your head.”

Leonard actually looks thoughtful at that, and Sara presses her advantage, reaching up and putting her other hand on his jaw, holding his face in her hands and making sure he looks at her.

“I think we went through all this back in 1958,” she tells him. “About you being a good person. Leonard, no one’s a good person all the time, and you’ve been actively trying to be better.” She hesitates. “What would Rebecca say? Or Ginny. David?”

He mutters something, but Sara doesn’t let him off the hook. “You know perfectly well what they’d say, because they’ve said it,” she tells him fiercely. “Now, stop insulting the man I love. Or I’m going to be pissed.”

That actually gets a smile, and he studies her, eyes a saturated deep blue. It’s impossible, as the tension fades—replaced by a different sort of tension--not to realize how close they are or how very charged the atmosphere is. Leonard reaches out deliberately and puts one hand on either side of her on the bed, looking through his lashes at her, and smiles.

“Well,” he drawls, sounding a little more like himself, leaning toward her. “Can’t have that. The woman I love is quite the badass, you know.”

“Yeah?” Sara smirks in return, moving her hands down to rest on his hips, where she threads her fingers through the belt loops on his jeans, pulling him even closer. “She sounds awesome.”

“Oh, yeah.” Leonard studies her, then glances away, expression going serious again. He looks like he’s trying to make a decision, and Sara waits, wondering.

Finally, he nods, as if to himself, and meets her eyes.

“Being on this ship,” he says, quietly, bringing one hand up to touch her cheek gently, “traveling through time…” A pause. “…I’ve been wondering what the future might hold for me... and you…and me and you.”

He stops again. Sara feels like she can’t quite breathe. Is this…a proposal, Leonard Snart-style?

“You want to steal a kiss from me, Leonard?” she says lightly, giving him the chance to defuse the moment even as her pounding heart wants desperately to know what he’s going to say. “You better be one hell of a thief.”

A smile tugs at the corner of his lips. A light in his eyes, Leonard starts to speak again…

But Gideon beats him to it.

“I am very sorry, Mr. Snart, Ms. Lance, truly, but we have arrived here, at the outpost,” she says carefully. “And time is of the essence…ah, in more ways than one. Can you meet the others at the bridge, or…”

A sigh explodes out of both of them at once, and Leonard shakes his head roughly as Sara closes her eyes and put a hand to her forehead. She wonders, briefly, if Leonard will tell Gideon that they need another moment…but then Leonard’s kissing her, his hand moving to curve behind her head, his lips warm and intent on hers, and Sara kisses him back, pulling him close, trying to memorize the feel and the taste of him before they part. It’s dangerous, what they’re going out to do, and they both know it—but if they ever want the future Leonard had spoken of, it’s something they both have to do.

They part slowly at first, staring at each other like they’re trying to memorize the sight, too. Well, Sara knows that she, for one, is.  She tucks a strand of hair behind an ear and takes a deep breath, knowing that they have to move.

“I love you,” she tells him breathlessly. “Leonard, be careful. I know you’re playing the hero now, but…I’d rather have a live crook. Got it?”

That gets her a wry, if somehow melancholy, smile. “Got it,” he shoots back. “Sara…I love you, too.” A glance away, then back. “Give Savage hell, and don’t let Rip do anything too stupid.”

He steps back, and Sara slides off the bed with a sigh, grabbing her good White Canary leathers. “I could say the same to you,” she tells him. “Don’t let Mick and Ray do anything dumb. I want you all back.”

“Promise.”

She’ll remember that, later. He’d promised.


	15. And In the Morning

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Third of the "Destiny" chapters. Thanks to LarielRomeniel for the beta!

The Pilgrim’s ship is named the Scimitar. Leonard stands on its bridge and watches the Waverider depart with Sara, Rip and Stein. The medbay is keeping the professor stable, and as he’d mentioned with arch gallows humor, if nothing else, maybe he could arrange to blow up in Savage’s face.

Raymond stands with him and watches the ship, even as Mick, muttering to himself, punches buttons on the Scimitar and barks at them both to hold on—the smaller ship doesn’t have jump seats for passengers. Leonard’s pretty sure the scientist would have liked to go with the others to help save Kendra, but Raymond has also insisted that he needs more time to look at the diagrams they’ve put together for the Oculus device (through his and Stein’s know-how and Rip’s memories)—and time to instruct someone in how to deactivate what he calls the “core-contained supernova” that powers it.

So, he’s with them, but under strict orders not to put himself into any position that leads to him being disintegrated by an explosion or laser blast. Leonard would think that’d be rather a good thing to avoid, but the scientist is a bit annoyed about it, for some reason.

“You think I don’t have _some_ sense of self-preservation?” he asks Mick and Leonard sulkily.

“No,” they’d responded in unison. Raymond had refused to talk to them for a good…well, 10 minutes, anyway.

Now, though, he’s apparently thoroughly forgiven them. “You OK?” he says with concern, turning to Leonard. “I mean, you must have wanted to go with Sara. I…”

Leonard really doesn’t want to do this right now. Or ever. “Fine, Raymond,” he not-quite-snaps. “I’m fine.”

“OK…” Raymond looks disappointed, then, glancing away. “I mean, I wish I could go with them too. Kendra…” He swallows. “I’m just worried about her.”

It hadn’t occurred to Leonard that the scientist’s concern for him might have been an attempt to distract himself from his own fear and worry. He hesitates, then sighs.

“She’s tough, Raymond,” he says quietly, as Mick snaps at them again and they move out of the way of the viewscreen. “And she’s going to fight. She’s not going to make anything easy for Savage.”

Raymond’s face contorts. “I know. Hell, she’s a lot tougher than I am.”

Leonard, who hadn’t been planning to say it himself, snorted. “Yeah.”

“But that doesn’t mean I don’t want to be there. I mean, don’t you?”

Aaannd, back to that again. Leonard rolls his eyes to cover his own unease. Just because he has feelings and has admitted that on occasion doesn’t mean he wants to talk about it. But it seems… perhaps he needs to remember, again, that he’s not alone here.

“I do,” he acknowledges with a sigh. “But I trust Sara. And she needs to be there. She’s the best at hand-to-hand, and they’re going to a very rough spot.”

Raymond nods. “I know.” He glances away. “I know. I just…eh, you get it.” He claps Leonard on the back and appears not to notice when the other man glares at him, turning away to look at Mick. “Um. How long?”

“Not long, Haircut.” Mick’s expression is focused and serious and not at all the Mick that Leonard’s been so familiar with over the years. “Now shut up and let me drive.”

“Shutting up.” Raymond makes a production of closing his mouth, then turns to Leonard. “OK, let’s go over this stuff again.” He crosses to a nearby screen and taps at it, studying the pictures that appear. “You, or Mick, will have to open the panel and reverse the polarity matrix.” He hesitates. “Probably you. Uh. You have the experience working with this sort of thing, and…” He clears his throat. “The hands.”

Leonard gives him a wry look. In a different time, this would be a remarkably entertaining opportunity to fluster the hell out of the other man. “Hands, Raymond?”

“Uh. Hands.” Raymond waves one of his own. “You know. Sensitive hands. You said it yourself…uh, I’m going to shut up now.”

“Good idea.” Leonard, smirking, briefly mourns the lost opportunity. He could get a lot of mileage out of this. The fingers of his right hand twitch again and he frowns, but chooses not to mention it. It’s been getting better. Gradually. “So. Tell me how I do this.”

“OK. From what we can tell…”

The thing is, Raymond’s right. Between Leonard’s experience with rewiring security systems since childhood and—innuendo aside—fairly dexterous hands (his new fingers twitch again; he ignores them again), he’s the right person for this job. That doesn’t stop the growing sense of doom that’s rising inexorably again, though, as it has since they’d decided who was going where, back on the Waverider bridge.

He has the oddest feeling he won’t be getting back on the ship. This one or the Waverider. He’d nearly told Sara that, but he’d lost his nerve. And now it’s too late. To say that, or anything.

Fuck, he hopes he’s wrong.

Leonard lets Raymond show him schematics and tell him earnestly about different scenarios for the Oculus system. While he’s increasingly sure, intellectually, that he can do this, his nerves are telling him otherwise.

Finally, he butts in when the scientist threatens to go off on another technical tangent. “What if there’s a fail-safe?”

Raymond blinks at him. “I…what? Why?”

“Common security feature.” Leonard rolls his eyes. “C’mon, Raymond. You really think they’d just leave this thing sitting there without something to protect it?” He leans forward, studying the diagram. “Remember, I haven’t only been deactivating security systems for years, I created a lot of them, back in 1958. So, the question is, what kind of fail-safe?”

Raymond looks perplexed, for some strange reason, but at least he listens. “What kinds are there?”

“Well, in the case of failure—or sabotage—does it shut off? Or does it somehow protect itself in another way? Is there redundancy?” Leonard frowns, tilting his head, looking at the plans. “Is the motive for it to be safe for people or the building if something goes wrong? Or for it to never fully stop working?”

“Well, reversing the polarity matrix will cause a really big boom—big enough to destroy the whole Vanishing Point, so it seems like they’d want to avoid that.” Raymond frowns. “Why didn’t I think of this?”

“Someone pulling your strings?” Leonard gives him a thin smile. “Or maybe it’s just because you’re not used to thinking like a crook.”

The other man doesn’t take the bait. “If I was designing this…”

Leonard considers thumping his head against the table—or thumping Raymond’s. “Damn it, Boy Scout, that’s what I just said. You _didn’t_. And the Time Bastards are far more mercenary and just plain mean. If someone tries to shut this down or blow it up…what would happen? Think like a Time Bastard.”

“I don’t think I can do that. But…”

But then Mick’s rumbling voice cuts in, making them both look up and around.

“Neither one of you are looking at it quite right,” the former bounty hunter informs them. Mick’s sitting back in the captain’s chair and regarding them, a mix of amusement and something darker in his gaze.

“Ultimately, they wouldn’t want it to fall into any hands but their own,” he comments. “Because if there’s one thing I know about the Time Masters, it’s that they think they always, _always_ …” He looks at Leonard, who finishes the statement, remembering an earlier conversation.

“…know best. For everyone,” he says thoughtfully. “So…dead man’s switch?”

Raymond shakes his head. “The kind of device that activates if the operator lets go? That doesn’t seem…”

“More than one kind of dead man’s switch, Haircut.”

“Right.” Leonard starts to pace. “One can also shut down if the operator lets go. But how would that work? It…”

“Outta time, boss. We’re here.”

Leonard spins, staring out the window as the looming Vanishing Point, more sure than ever that something’s about to go horribly wrong. But as Mick says…they’re out of time.

He takes a deep breath, putting a hand on the cold gun, as Mick starts bringing the ship in for a landing, knowing how fast things will have to move when they touch down. Like at the cell block before, he’ll be out and moving for the wellspring chamber as the others take the ship up again and fire on any attackers, hopefully distracting them, providing an opportunity for a single person to get in and do the job.

But Raymond, ever optimistic, ever thinking, perks up then.

“You can use the Atom suit,” he says, reaching into his pocket and pulling out the capsule with the shrunken costume. “Why didn’t I think of that before?”

Leonard stares at him. “No.”

“Yes!” The scientist looks obdurate. “C’mon, Snart, it’s the least I can do if you’re going to insist I sit back and watch this.” He pauses as Leonard shakes his head. “If you won’t do it for me, do it for Sara. So she doesn’t have to kick my ass, or Mick’s, for letting you be killed.”

“He’s right,” Mick informs him. “Don’t be an idiot.”

Leonard glares but he’s outnumbered, and a part of him knows that they’re right.

“OK,” he says with a sigh, watching as Raymond restores the suit to full size. “Hurry up. Cliff’s Notes version. And there better be no photos.”

Mick laughs evilly. “Well, there weren’t going to be until you gave us the idea.”

Leonard sighs again.

* * *

_Concurrent with the departure of the Scimitar_

Rip has countless diagrams and maps and timelines that deal with when and how and where his family died. Sara, standing at the table in the study and staring at them, feels her heart go out to him again.

How many times has he tried? How many tricks has he attempted? How many ways has he seen them fall?

She glances around as she hears Rip come back into the room with a sigh. He crosses to the table and looks at the papers himself, with a world-weary expression that tells her that the answer to all those questions is simply “far too many.”

So, instead, Sara asks something that might actually help them…or at least answer more pertinent questions.

“Savage left before us,” she says, watching him. “How can we beat him back to 2166?”

Rip smiles a little, and it’s an expression that’s not without hope. “Well, Ms. Lance, part of it is our path. Savage is, from what we know, on a pre-set path through the timestream to that time and place. He can’t tweak it to cut corners…he doesn’t have the know-how, or an AI with the experience of Gideon. Right, Gideon?”

“Indeed, Captain Hunter. Nor a captain with your skills.”

Rip smiles again, ducking his head. “And part of it is this ship.” He pats the table. “From all Gideon and I have been able to glean, the ship the Time Masters gave to Savage is generally a one-man vessel. It doesn’t have the speed capabilities of the Waverider, or its resilience.”

“So…we might be able to outrun him.”

“Indeed.” Rip sighs. “But…I’ve tried so many things. I…I have a hard time believing this could work.” He glances away. “It hurts to hope.”

Sara puts a hand on his shoulder. “I understand. But…you have to anyway.” She smiles a little sadly. “You have to try.”

Rip pats her hand with his. “I know, Ms. Lance. And I am.” He clears his throat. “Dr. Stein is doing well enough for now. He’s going over calculations, seeing if we can cut any more corners. It’s keeping him occupied, anyway.” He gives her a sidelong glance. “And how are you holding up?”

Leonard is off blowing up time itself. She’s not great. But they’re not attached at the hip, and Sara isn’t all that willing to talk about it. “I’m fine.”

Rip’s face says he’s not convinced, but he lets it go. He does sigh. “Believe it or not, I never wanted my quest to hurt you all,” he says quietly. “And now…it seems unlikely we’ll all make it through this, between Dr. Stein’s predicament, the Vanishing Point and Savage and…”

Sara _really_ doesn’t want to think about it. She turns away, back toward the map. “Show me again. Where your home was, and where…where you found Miranda and Jonas.”

Rip doesn’t argue. He shows her. Again.

And they fly on.

* * *

Raymond’s taller than he is, but the suit fits well enough anyway. Leonard, irritated at the lack of easy motion, tilts his head from side to side, scowling through the visor. The suit’s inventor, though, ignores his grumbling and runs quickly through how to shrink and return to normal size, how to operate the jets that will allow him to fly, and how to use the blasters.

“If there’s something that needs to be held down, you can lock the gauntlet in place and take your hand out,” he says, pointing to the edge of the gauntlet and a latch there. “You won’t be able to shrink then, though, and you’ll have lost a blaster. You’ll just have to run for it.”

“Got it.”

“Landing now,” Mick barks out. “Snart, you gotta move.”

“Got that too.” Leonard shifting irritably again, turning for the hatch. “Give ‘em hell.”

“Oh, I will. This thing has some firepower.”

“Be careful!” Raymond calls. “I’ll be on comms.”

Leonard mutters something in return, then stops by the captain’s chair briefly. Mick eyes him warily, then glances away, toward the viewscreen.

“Don’t do anything too dumb,” he mutters. “Now, go get this over with.”

Leonard doesn’t move. They’re different men, he thinks for the umpteenth time since he’d returned from 1958 and Mick had battled his way back from being Chronos. Maybe…maybe it’s not a bad thing to acknowledge that.

“Love you too, brother,” he tosses back, casually, as if it’s a thing they say, then heads for the hatch and the Oculus wellspring.

Mick, perhaps shocked, doesn’t respond. But then, he doesn’t really need to.

* * *

There’s no sign of another time ship when they enter the airspace around London 2166. As Gideon reports that news, Sara—dressed in her White Canary outfit and ready to fight—sees Rip’s eyes widen, sees how he rather obviously tries not to get his hopes up.

But that’s impossible. He has hope. Impossible not to.

They land neatly. Stein, shaky but still hanging in there, stays on the bridge while Sara and Rip prepare to disembark, ready to head to where they can find Miranda and Jonas. There are explosions all over the city, Savage’s troops fulfilling their orders even without their leader’s presence, and even without Savage, it’s not going to be a picnic.

But when they do leave the Waverider, there’s another ship in the sky, after all. It is, however, not Savage’s ship.

“Is that…” Sara breathes, halting right outside the hatch.

“Yes,” Rip says incredulously in return. He turns. “Martin! You…ah. You’ll want to see this.”

They need to move quickly, they truly do, but the professor, barely unable to stand on his own, appears a few minutes later. He looks at them, then looks out the hatch, his jaw dropping.

“The jump ship,” he whispers. “Jefferson?”

The hatch of the smaller ship opens…and, yes, indeed. Jax saunters out, something of Leonard’s habitual insouciance in his posture, grinning at them proudly. He makes his way toward the Waverider as Stein stumbles down the gangplank toward him. Sara grins, glancing at Rip, who looks amazed but definitely not unhappy.

“I fixed on the Waverider, but I was kinda expecting you guys to be at the Vanishing Point,” Jax says, scanning them. “Why are we back here? And where are the others?”

“That is…a long story,” Rip murmurs, and the younger man nods, looking away and toward his nuclear counterpart, whose life he’s so abruptly saved.

“Hope I'm not too late,” Jax tells Stein, holding his arms out in greeting, grinning. Sara finds herself grinning too. Hope, unasked for.

“No, Jefferson, you're right on time,” Stein tells him, smiling, then reaches out. With a whirl of flame, they dissolve and reform into Firestorm, Jax’s grin still present.

“Well?” he asks Rip. “What we waitin’ for?”

The captain shakes his head—and grins.

“Nothing at all, Mr. Jackson, Dr. Stein,” he says, turning away, pulling his gun and taking a few steps toward the city. “Now. Let’s go.”

Sara smiles in return. “With you, captain.”

* * *

The Scimitar lifts off again as soon as he’s out. There’s no one in sight yet and Leonard starts for the domed building ahead quickly. After only another moment, though, he sighs and bows to practicality, stopping in the shadow of another building and cautiously pressing a button hidden within the suit.

Shrinking is…a weird sensation. Very weird. Leonard closes his eyes, fighting the vertigo Raymond had warned him would happen, and wishes he’d had a little more time to get used to this before showtime. But he doesn’t, and it’s time to move, quickly.

Flying is less weird, but more complicated. Fortunately, the main idea is simply to get to a specific place as fast and unseen as possible, not to perform any fancy maneuvers. At barely a handful of inches tall, about 20 feet in the air seems like it’s miles, and Leonard tries not to look down as he carefully keeps the suit’s jets pointing in the same direction.

That doesn’t mean he doesn’t see the collection of soldiers, and one robed Time Master—perhaps the same one he’d knocked out earlier, back in the cell block—below as he approaches the wellspring chamber. He’d been right—they’d expected the Legends to return, probably even engineered it.

Well, they can keep waiting. And eventually, someone will tell them that it’s the Scimitar, not the Waverider, that’s waiting to be noticed not so far away. That’s not Leonard’s piece of this puzzle. He has other things to do.

The wellspring chamber itself is empty, save for the huge hole over the rush of blue light that apparently signifies the trapped supernova. Leonard lands (not entirely successfully, but hell, no one’s watching right now) and grows back to his original size, shaking his head against the vertigo again. He studies the setup, the platform over the pit and the bridge to it. Not a very practical setup, but maybe there’s some reason for it.

The panel in the front of the device pops off easily enough, and Leonard peers inside cautiously. He’s a bit relieved to find that it pretty much matches the schematics he’d studied with Raymond. He can work with this.

It’s fine work, though. Leonard frowns as he tries to maneuver the pieces inside the control panel with the Atom suit’s gauntlets. Finally, he huffs a little and removes the one over his right hand, bracing himself with the other and continuing to work.

He doesn’t turn on the comms. He doesn’t want to be distracted by Raymond yammering in his ear.

Within a few moments, though, it’s clear enough what’s going on outside. There’s firing, not just the Time Masters’ soldiers’ guns, but the louder fire of a ship. They’ve found the Scimitar.

And they’ll be coming for him soon.

Leonard moves one part, waits for the lights to change, then moves another, concentrating. He’s almost there. He just has to…

There are heavy footsteps behind him, moving into the room. As they get closer, Leonard stops bracing himself and lets go of the device with his left hand, throwing it out behind him and firing wildly. There are shouts, and then return fire, but it stops after a moment, and Leonard hears a voice issuing orders.

“If you’re going to…do it precisely,” it says. “If you damage…won’t be able to control the Oculus, and we don’t even know where the others….” A pause. “They’re already off course. They could ruin…we’ve worked for.”

Leonard grins wolfishly, putting together enough of the words to feel a rush of victory. The next words make him frown, though, even as he moves another switch, and another.

“Call for a sniper,” another voice orders, then, seemingly to the first voice, “These weapons can’t guarantee a shot that precise. And we need something stronger for that suit.”

Crap. Well, he has a few more minutes. He needs to make them worth it.

He finds the fail-safe when he just about triggers it, pulling his hand away a fraction just as he goes to trip the last switch. It’s subtly different from the others and, studying it, he can see that when it’s moved, it’s going to need to be held down for the polarity matrix to reverse. If he lets go, nothing will change. But if something holds it down…

He needs to transfer his other, gauntleted hand over there, or get the gauntlet back on his right hand. The first seems more plausible. He starts to carefully maneuver, cursing how the suit hampers his dexterity.

It’s a shot, far too close, perhaps from a nearly arrived sniper, that does it. It zips by just behind him with a cracking noise, and Leonard is just tightly wound enough to start.

And his fingers of his right hand, his new hand, twitch instinctively. They tighten on the lever, and…

He’s triggered the fail-safe.

The blue light starts to grow and surge around him, and there’s an ominous hum from below. Leonard stares into the device, wondering if he can still switch hands and lock things into place. But there are more yells behind him, and the light is growing quickly, and he knows that even if he pulls away now, the likelihood of making it out of here is nearly nil.

He uses his left hand to slap the comm on the helmet and yells before he can think about it: “Get outta here, Mick! Get outta here now!”

“Snart!” Raymond yells back, and he hears Mick swear…but he’s already turned off the comm again.

“Shut it down!” the Time Bastard yells at him. Leonard can’t help but smirk a little. Does the man really think he’ll just listen? Like hell.

After all the plans and the precautions and the trying to evade expectations, it’s coming down to this anyway.

He takes a deep breath, wishes to hell he wasn’t breaking his promise to Sara, is wistfully glad he’d said those words to Mick, and turns his head to glare at the Time Bastard. The robed man is staring at him in horror, the expression clear even through the growing rush of blue light, and Leonard wonders for just a moment why he isn’t running. Perhaps he realizes there isn’t anywhere to run to.

As far as last words go, he isn’t really prepared. And he doesn’t think there’s much longer, not at all. He considers a few things and discards them, then chooses to go with a classic. Smirking at the Time Bastard through the light, he inclines his head.

 “Yippee-kiyay, motherf...”

The world dissolves in blue light.

* * *

“Well. As last words go, I think I rather prefer those to the ones I used. Still, I wasn’t at my best. Give me that.”

Leonard opens his eyes at the sound of the other voice. The world is still blue, all around him, oddly frozen, and he’s still holding onto the fail-safe. This isn’t what he’d though death would feel like, and he’s definitely not as alone as Sara had said.

He lifts his gaze, just a little, and frowns as he sees the shape, glowing blue, next to him.

It’s…

He narrows his eyes.

It’s _him_.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Before you scream, go back and notice what I did NOT tag. ;)


	16. I'll Be Longing for the Night

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And here's the final "Destiny" chapter! I have been waiting for this for SO long. Many thanks to LarielRomeniel for the beta!
> 
> Please note that I've updated the tags a little. They were never going to get out of this without some sort of sacrifice. :( But now...watch out, Savage.

Whitechapel, as expected, is…rough. Sara takes out a number of Savage’s soldiers, grimly and triumphantly, and Rip does the same, moving inexorably toward the site he’s pinpointed for them. Firestorm soars overhead, watching their backs, and they proceed, still with no sign of Savage himself.

Sara’s glad…although she still worries about Kendra. Still, one problem at a time.

In time, she hears Rip’s breath starting to come short in his lungs, and she knows they must be close. She scans the area…and then nearly bumps into him, as he’s stopped dead in his tracks, staring at the dark-haired woman and the boy hunkered down near a wrought-iron fence.

Sara’s only seen them in holograms and photographs, but she recognizes them immediately. Miranda has a gun in her hand and a determined expression, but it falters a little as she sees them.

“Rip?” she says incredulously as her eyes fix on her husband. “Am I seeing things?”

The captain steps toward her, his own eyes wide. He gets closer, closer, then reaches out to touch his wife’s face. She allows him to do so, closing her eyes, then glances down at the boy at her side before looking up again.

“Rip,” she says again. “How are you _here_?”

There’s something in the words, something Sara hears from her position a few feet away, but Rip doesn’t appear to recognize it. He swallows, and Sara can hear, if not see, the tears in his eyes.

“Miranda,” he breathes. “Jonas. Oh, you have no idea what I’ve done to get here to you.”

Miranda’s breath catches. Sara hears that, too. The dark-haired woman looks past her husband at Sara, then looks back at him.

“Tell me,” she says.

Rip’s laughter is shaky and perhaps not entirely balanced. “We have to move,” he tells her, taking her hand. “No time for that now…”

But Miranda’s not moving. She fixes her eyes on his face.

“ _Tell_ me,” she says, iron in her tone. “Rip, I know the Time Masters in a way you just…you just do not. Tell me. I need to know.”

The captain stares at her, swallowing. He looks back at Sara, too, then up at Firestorm above them, guarding their backs. Then he looks back at Miranda.

“I gathered a team,” he tells her. “To help me save you. And we’ve been through…we’ve been through a lot. The Time Masters, it turns out, they planned your deaths, to get me to do everything, but…” He shakes his head roughly. “We’re here. We’re here. And you…we can save you.”

But at some point during his words, Miranda’s expression has gone still. She regards her husband, then glances over at Sara again. And there’s something there, something with a degree of understanding that’s uncanny, and Sara can only watch her in return, thinking, for some reason, of Leonard.

Miranda leans over and murmurs something to her son, then, leaning down to kiss his forehead. Jonas looks up at her with wide eyes and says something in turn, then glances at his father…and then he looks over at Sara and starts toward her.

Rip frowns, watching her. “Miranda,” he says, “what…”

His wife takes a deep breath, reaching out to take his other hand, holding both in her own.

“Rip,” she tells him, looking up into his eyes. “If you save us, you’ll have no reason to do all those things. To create your team. To go against the Time Masters. You’re creating a time loop.”

The captain blinks at her. “I…it doesn’t matter. I need to save you. No matter what…”

Miranda smiles at him. Jonas, at this point, has reached Sara, and he’s look up at her with great trepidation. She tries to look encouraging. It’s probably not helped by the splatters of blood on her outfit.

“No,” Miranda says simply. “You need a loophole.” And then she pulls her hand out of his and takes a deep breath. “I’m that loophole. Take Jonas. And go.”

Sara’s breath catches, and she thinks Rip’s does too.

“Miranda…” he breathes.

His wife reaches up and takes his face in her hands, just like Sara had done with Leonard not so long ago. “Rip…Michael,” she says quietly. “We both know it. Sometimes time needs a sacrifice.”

Sara looks away, tears stinging her eyes, then looks down at Jonas, who looks scared but determined. She holds her hand out to him and, after a moment, he takes it, squeezing her fingers, looking up at her with eyes very like his father’s.

Sara’s actively not listening to what Rip says to Miranda at that point, but it’s impossible not to notice how he kisses her, desperate and hopeless. And how he turns away, starting toward Sara, eyes stark and determined, focused now on his son, the one thing he’s managed to save despite everything.

“Let’s go,” he says.

Sara looks at Miranda. The other woman smiles at her, eyes determined, and Sara decides in that moment that she’s never quite seen bravery like that before. She tips her head to Miranda, then turns, guarding Rip and Jonas’ backs.

It’s the least she can do.

* * *

They get back just in time to see Savage’s ship land.

Sara knows she can’t kill him, but she’s truly in the mood to make him suffer. Baton in one hand, knife in another, she moves in front of Rip and Jonas, seeing Firestorm descend out of the corner of her eye.

“Get in the ship,” she tells Rip tersely. “Get your son to safety.”

The captain doesn’t hesitate. Sara hears him run up and through the hatch, but she’s still facing the other, smaller ship, waiting.

The hatch opens. Sara tenses.

But Savage doesn’t step out.

And after a moment…Kendra does.

After a startled second, Firestorm whoops, alighting near Sara. Kendra gazes at them both, a slight smile on her face, then moves toward them. Her wings form a graceful double bow over her head and her expression is serene.

Sara shakes her head. “How…”

There’s a sound from behind her, but it’s Rip, running back down to join, also staring at Kendra in amazement.

“Ms. Saunders,” he exclaims. “Where…how…”

Now Kendra grins.

“Lockpicks,” she says, holding them up. “Snart was right. They came in handy. Savage…well, he wasn’t expecting that.”

Sara laughs right out loud then, as does Jax, and Rip sighs—but it’s in wonder.

“And Savage?” he asks, staring at the ship.

But Kendra shakes her head, glancing over her shoulder too.

“I didn’t kill him,” she says apologetically. “I couldn’t do it permanently anyway. But he’s out. For the moment; it won’t be long. Minutes. Or less.”

Rip looks conflicted and Sara can guess what he’s thinking. They could kill Savage temporarily, anyway, or lock him in the brig. But…

If she understands, Miranda had suggested that Rip had caused a loop of sorts because none of them would even _be_ in this time or place if he hadn’t lost someone there. By allowing Savage to go now, maintaining her sacrifice even as Jonas is saved, _that_ earlier Rip still has a motive to do everything he’d already done—and a chance at killing Savage permanently, saving millions.

 And then the captain takes a deep breath, and he honors the sacrifice his wife is making. He turns away. Sara blinks away the tears in her eyes.

 “That will give us time to get away,” he says in a bleak voice, motioning to them. “Come on, you lot. We need to get in the air.”

* * *

Leonard’s still staring.

The other Leonard smirks back at him, arms folded.

“Hi,” he drawls.

Leonard shakes his head roughly. “What the hell…”

“Oh, it’s not hell. I don’t think.” His twin looks momentarily thoughtful, then shakes his head too. “Eh, short version, I’m you from another Earth. A very similar one, but still.”

“Another…I’m hallucinating.”

“Nope.” His blue doppelganger shrugs, then waves a hand. “The wellspring…in some ways, it crosses worlds. And there are a lot of them, all a little different. Some have an Oculus, some don’t. And apparently it’s just the way things are that I…we…seem to have a predilection for destroying the damned thing.”

His expression stills. “I…well, I suppose I died here, doing what you are now.” He nods to Leonard and the Oculus device. “And I’m still here. Trying to make sure it doesn’t happen to anyone else, for lack of anything better to do.” He smirks then. “And enjoying the chance to stick it to the Time Bastards in multiple dimensions. I have a certain amount of ability to control things myself, while I’m in here.”

Leonard stares back at him. “It was you,” he says finally. “You’re the other one who was pulling my strings. In Harmony Falls in 1958. And other times.”

The other man tips his head. “Not…precisely,” he admits. “Not like the Time Bastards did. Though I’ll admit there are times I prodded you in the direction of something you wanted to do anyway.”

“And how do you know that?”

“Because I wish I’d done the same myself.” The blue light around the other Leonard flickers. “I didn’t do it much, I assure you. Mostly I tried to warn you.” He shrugs. “Sorry. I think I wound up making things worse sometimes.”

Leonard thinks about the reoccurring feeling of doom and sighs, then remembers something else. “You’re the one who called me an idiot. Back on the bridge. With Sara.”

His doppelganger shrugs. “Well, we were, although I’ll admit you stopped the impulse in time.” He glances away. “I didn’t.”

Leonard glares at him. “You didn’t…”

“No! I pulled my gun, to try to get her to leave.” The other man looks profoundly uncomfortable. “I didn’t…I’d never hurt her.” He shakes his head. “We weren’t…like you. Weren’t ever more than a _maybe_.”

He glances up and studies Leonard then, eyes serious. “You happy?”

Not a question he’d expected. But he feels like he needs to give this other self the truth. “Yeah,” he admits, then looks at his hand, still buried in the frozen blue light of the Oculus. “Well. Not right now, I’m not.”

“Well, that’s something I can do something about.” The blue Leonard smirks again. Then he reaches over and…it’s an eerie sensation, as for a moment, their hands overlap. Leonard can feel the other man’s fingers tighten on the fail-safe. He waits a moment, then, glancing at him, lets go…and pulls his hand away, shaking it, trying to get feeling back in the fingers.

“But this place is still blowing up,” he retorts, knowing his voice is a little harsh. “And I’m still stuck here.”

His other self rolls his eyes and gives him a weary look. It’s one Leonard knows well, although he’s far more used to wearing it. Then the doppelganger shifts a little, lifting his other hand and putting it flat on Leonard’s chest.

“Kiss Sara for me, will you?” he says a bit wistfully, as the blue light intensifies. “And don’t fuck this up.”

And then he _shoves_.

* * *

Jonas Hunter is sitting in one of the jump seats, looking at the disembodied head Sara has seen Gideon present herself as once or twice. It vanishes as the others enter, though, and Rip quickly takes them into the air, then jumps them into the timestream. The tension in his shoulders fades then, or maybe it just changes. He stares out the viewscreen for a long moment, then takes a deep breath and turns to his son, holding out his arms.

Sara feels tears stinging her eyes again, but before she can turn away or say anything, Gideon does.

“The Oculus has been destroyed,” the AI says softly. “It…it happened while you were still on your way into Whitechapel. Time is unmoored.”

Rip lets out a sigh, and Jax quietly asks Stein what he’s missed. Sara, however, just closes her eyes, feeling her heart twist, wondering…

“Gideon,” she whispers. “Do you know…the others…”

“I do not, Ms. Lance.” A pause. “I do know the Vanishing Point has been destroyed too. I’ve been trying to raise communications with the Scimitar, but to no avail. And there is no timeline data due to the destruction of the Oculus.”

“We're sailing without a map,” Rip says quietly. “The only thing we can do is try to meet them at the rendezvous point.” Sara glances at him and sees the sympathy in his eyes, and the pain. “Gideon…please take us there.”

“On the way, captain.”

* * *

The Scimitar is there, on the ground at the outpost, as they jump into the sky above. Sara’s heart gives a leap when she sees it, and she hears Rip sigh in relief. Still, there’s no guarantee that all of them made it out, and she knows it.

The Waverider lands neatly nearby, and Rip, Sara, Kendra, Martin and Jax—leaving Jonas talking earnestly to Gideon—head to the hatch and out into the deserted silence of the site. The Scimitar’s hatch is moving too, and Sara nibbles her lip, hoping.

It’s Ray who leaves the other ship first, barreling down the ramp and then stopping in his tracks to stare. A grin spreads over his face as he sees Kendra, and Sara hears the other woman laugh, starting toward her husband, who hadn’t died at the Oculus after all.

There’s a pause, then, long enough to make Sara even more nervous. Ray’s too involved with Kendra to ask, although surely he’d have said if he was the only one on the ship. Right?

Mick emerges next, and Sara’s heart sinks as she sees the blank, distant expression on his face. He pauses on the ramp, turning his head from side to side to survey then, and his eyes light on Sara last. He studies them all a long moment.

And then he smirks and turns his head to toss some sort of a comment over his shoulder, back to someone still in the ship.

And then…

Leonard limps out of the ship under his own power, scowling at his partner as he joins him outside. Then he looks over at them, too, his expression lightening as he registers Ray and Kendra, Jax standing with Stein, and…and then Sara.

Sara barely realizes she’s moving until they meet there between the two ships, and Leonard, uncharacteristically, doesn’t hesitate at all before pulling her into his arms and kissing her hard, in front of everyone. When they part, she blinks as she registers his expression, a wistful and oddly sad look that fades even as she stares.

“Hi,” he says a bit gruffly, looking down at her.

“Hi.” Sara smiles back, then mock-scowls at him, looking at the foot he’s favoring. “What did you do to yourself?”

“Turned my ankle. Long story.” Side by side, they turn and head for the others, who are in various phases of trying not to grin at them.

Ray, though, isn’t trying at all. “The weirdest thing happened,” he tells the group happily. “A miracle, really. Tell them, Snart.”

Sara looks at her lover curiously, but Leonard looks quite uncomfortable with the comment. He shrugs, glancing away.

“Not now, Raymond,” he mutters, then looks at Rip. It’s an expression not without sympathy, but Sara can also see it for the demand for information it is.

“Well?” he asks. “We destroyed the Oculus. Is Savage…”

“No.” Rip shook his head. “Even now, we still don’t have a way to do so.” He takes a deep breath. “However, Jonas is on board. Miranda…elected to stay. She sacrificed herself.”

Leonard shudders. There’s really no better word for it. He looks away as Mick grunts and Ray makes a horrified noise.

“Rip,” the scientist says. “I’m sorry.”

The captain gives him a smile that holds no amusement at all. “As am I. But we have achieved…” He looks around their little group. “If not all I hoped, then far more than I feared. We still need to take out Savage—but the Time Masters no longer have the ability to manipulate time.” Now the smile is just a bit…savage. “They can’t help Savage anymore.”

“Damn right,” Mick says gruffly, clapping the captain on the back.

“From this point forward, we _know_ our actions are our own,” Kendra adds, with a fierce smile of our own. “We have free will.”

Sara takes a deep breath. She squeezes Leonard’s hand, thinks of Miranda and the look on her face as she’d made her decision, and nods.

“Well, my free will wants to go kill a warlord,” she says. “Let’s find a way.”

“And we will Ms. Lance.” Rip bows his head. “But first…we need to make a few stops.”

* * *

Leonard limps uncomfortably besides Sara as they walk back onto the ship, and she slows her steps to stay with him. He’s sure (equally uncomfortably) that she’s not going to let the mystery of what happened at the Vanishing Point rest long, but he has a reprieve for now.

He clears his throat awkwardly, then reaches out and takes her hand again. Sara glances over, but she doesn’t speak. She does, however, smile.

As they reach the bridge, Jonas looks up, eyes wide. His father crosses to him, saying something quietly, and he relaxes. Leonard tosses the boy a smile as he limps past, wincing as his ankle falters again, then sinks into a jump seat, watching as Rip turns and regards them all.

“I need to find somewhere else for Jonas to stay,” he says, surveying them. “Until Savage is dead. I’m thinking the Refuge. I also need to return your younger selves to the timeline.”

Kendra lets out a long sigh at that, and Raymond perks up. It’s not that surprising—they want to see their son again. But Leonard narrows his eyes, picking up on something. “And what else? You said, ‘a few stops.’”

Rip smiles a little, but it’s an uncomfortable expression. “Yes. Well.” He takes a breath. “Jonas? I imagine you’re hungry. Would you go to the galley? Do you remember where it is?”

The boy perks up a little, bounding out of his seat. “Yes!” he says.

“I will guide you if you need assistance, Master Jonas,” Gideon told him. “There been a few small changes to the ship. Now…”

Everyone’s silent until the boy has disappeared. Then Leonard looks back at the captain, lifting an eyebrow. He doesn’t say more. He doesn’t need to. Everyone else is looking that way too.

Rip sighs again.

“After everything,” he said, looking down at the holotable, “that we have all been through together, I feel the need to…own up, as it were.”

“To what?” Jax asks suspiciously.

“Yes, Rip,” Leonard drawls, leaning back in his chair. “To what?”

Rip smiles, a humorless expression. “Savage has a timeship, courtesy of the Time Masters,” he says. “And the timeline is unclear, due to our destruction of the Oculus, meaning Savage is lost to history.”

Raymond scowls at him. “So? We’ll find him!”

The captain shakes his head. “After all your sacrifices…” His voice trails off a moment before he starts again. “I want you to be sure. Those sacrifices may not be over. And I feel I haven’t been…entirely honest, in some ways.”

Mick growls. “What _now_?”

“Yes,” Kendra cuts in, frowning, “what _now_?”

The other man doesn’t answer quite yet. “I want to take you all…home.”

Jax shakes his head. “Mission's not over, man.”

“Jax is right,” Ray says honestly. “We've lost Savage before.” He nods. “We'll find him again.”

But Rip’s shaking his head. “No,” he says, “no, that’s not it. I just…I want you to be sure,” he repeats. And…”

He stops.

“Rip…” Sara says warningly.

The captains sighs. Again. “I’m going to have to take you back to May 2016, not January 2016,” he says. “Timeline interference.”

Jax throws his hands in the air. “Great,” he says, “so what you're saying is for the last five months, my mom probably thinks that I'm dead.” He shakes his head. “Thanks a lot, man.” “Clarissa…” Stein says in horror. “She doesn’t _know_ …”

Leonard doesn’t say what he’s thinking, but he does exchange a glance with Sara. They both have sisters, and Sara, at least, has parents and friends.

“I know.” Rip won’t meet their eyes. “I didn’t plan on that. And…”

He stops again.

“And _what_?” Leonard barks.

But when the captain looks up, it’s Sara he focuses on.

“Ms. Lance,” he says with a sigh. “You, in particular, will find some things have changed.”

* * *

Sara’s still shaking her hand out and fuming when she and Leonard make their way to their room. Leonard, still limping, is smiling a little at her muttered profanity. While he’s thoroughly sympathetic to her anger at Rip, he’s also profoundly relieved that Sara’s sister is alive and recovering—despite what had apparently happened in the original timeline.

As is Sara, of course…but the realization that Rip had purposefully taken her away during the crisis that had so profoundly affected her family members and family had still pisses her off. Even if it also had saved her life.

(Personally, Leonard’s planning to shake Rip’s hand sometime when Sara isn’t watching. The idea of Sara falling to this Damien Darhk doesn’t bear thinking about.)

Leonard’s not so pleased, though, that Sara’s so thoroughly annoyed right now. Because soon, she’s going to ask about what happened at the Vanishing Point, and he’s—he can’t believe he’s saying this, but he’s honor-bound to tell her the truth. And Raymond and Mick had already threatened to do it…and swear they will if Leonard doesn’t.

They say he needs to tell Rip, too. And he will. But Sara comes first.

The longer it goes, the more he wonders if he’d imagined what had happened. But he can still picture and hear his other self, and both Raymond and Mick had seen the results.

“I just…” Sara whirls around, still frowning. “Laurel could have _died_ , and I wouldn’t have been there to at least try, or to comfort my parents. I wouldn’t have even known. He should have at least told me.”

“He should have,” Leonard agrees easily, leaning on the bed and taking some weight off his ankle. He probably should go to the medbay, to be honest.

Sara lets out a long breath and shakes her head again, pulling out one of her cases and starting to divest herself of weaponry, always an entertaining sight. “At least she’s OK, or she’s going to be. I wonder what changed the timeline?”

“No way of knowing now,” Leonard comments, then winces as he realizes he’d brought up a subject he’d rather like to avoid. And Sara doesn’t miss it either, turning her head to raise an eyebrow at him as she tucks knives away.

“That’s right,” she muses. “We can’t read the timeline now that the Vanishing Point’s gone.” She frowns for a moment. “That’s interesting…does it mean that the Time Masters were always using the Oculus to set things? Otherwise, wouldn’t Gideon still be able to see the timeline as it should be?”

“I think the Time Council really bought into the notion of their ‘one true timeline’ and then passed it on to their captains without really telling them why.” For a moment, the puzzle of it distracts him. But it doesn’t distract Sara, who finishes her work and puts the case away, then starts unlacing her outfit, even as she watches him.

“So,” she says, “what did Ray mean? What happened at the Vanishing Point? We know the Oculus is gone, but really nothing else.”

Leonard hesitates. It only makes her gaze sharpen. So, he sighs, rotates his sore ankle uncomfortably again, and meets her eyes. He’ll try to get through the abbreviated version first.

“It made sense,” he tells her, “for me to be the one to set off the explosion.”

Sara pauses with her corset half off. Distracting. Unfortunately, she’s not the one distracted. She regards him warily, slowly removing the item, leaving her in her sports bra and leather pants.

Leonard tries not to be distracted. _Tries_. “And…there was a problem.”

Sara folds her arms, studying him.

“And a fail-safe. And… I was holding it.” He takes a deep breath. “When it went off.”

He risks a look at Sara. She’s staring at him with an odd, still expression, and he can’t read her at all. It’s disconcerting. He waits, uncertain as to how to continue, because the rest still seems unbelievable.

Sara tires of waiting first. “How are you here?” she asks quietly, unfolding her arms, moving toward him. And then, when he continues to hesitate, “Leonard. How are you _here_?”

He can’t get out of this. “Something…” He pauses. “…someone, froze the explosion. And…somehow threw me back to the Scimitar.”

Frown lines crease Sara’s brow as she watches him. She’s close enough to touch now, but they’re both keeping their hands to themselves, like neither of them can believe this is quite real.

“Who?” she asks finally. “Who saved you?”

He can’t dodge anymore. Leonard lets out a sigh and tells her, even though there’s still an element of himself that can barely believe it.

“Me,” he tells her, spreading his hands helplessly. “He said he was…me. From a different timeline. He looked just like me. Sounded like me.”

He pauses. But while Sara’s still staring at him, she hasn’t expressed any disbelief. “He’s been stuck in the wellspring throughout timelines after doing the same thing, blowing the Oculus device up,” Leonard continues after a moment. “He’s the reason I’ve been resisting…I resisted the Time Masters’ machinations to some extent, and the reason I did a few things I couldn’t really figure out.” He frowns, taking in her expression. “Say something?”

And then, when she doesn’t, he manages a “Please?”

Sara lets out a semi-explosive sigh. “That’s…that’s unbelievable,” she says, looking up and into his eyes (and Leonard’s reassured to see that there’s no actual disbelief there). “He didn’t…make you do anything you didn’t want to do…right?”

Leonard smirks at her, knowing that there’s relief in his expression and knowing that Sara can see it.

“No,” he drawls, moving even closer, reaching out slowly and pulling her into his arms. Sara goes easily, reaching out and curving her arms around his waist, leaning her head against his chest with a sigh. “Although…I do think we had more than a few things in common.”

She looks up at him, quirking a brow. “Oh?”

“Yeah.” He leans down a little as Sara goes up on her toes to get closer. “He…ah. He asked me to do this.”

The kiss is slow and passionate, full of the messy sorts of feelings Leonard’s spent most of his life avoiding, and it’s catharsis and apology and pure, unadulterated relief all mixed together. By the time they part, Leonard’s feeling more at ease than he has for a long time, and lucky as hell. Things could so easily have gone differently, from 1958 to the Vanishing Point, but here they are.

Sara takes a deep breath and opens her eyes, smiling at him.

“There was a…a me, in his timeline?” she asks curiously.

Leonard shrugs, still a little weirded out by the whole thing. “Yeah. Said they weren’t more than a _maybe_ before he…I don’t know if ‘died’ is the right word.”

“I wonder if we can do anything for him,” Sara muses, then shakes her head, dismissing the idea for the moment. “This sounds unbelievable. But…you’re here. Something has to explain it.” She lifts an eyebrow. “And the ankle?”

Leonard moves uncomfortably. “Raymond and Mick say I just sort of appeared on the Scimitar in this burst of blue light, and I hit the deck pretty hard,” he tells her. “Minor concussion. Twisted ankle. I’ll take it.”

They’d been flying away from the Vanishing Point, just ahead of the shock wave. As Leonard had struggled up onto his elbows, swearing and disoriented, the faces of his teammates had swum into focus. Raymond had clearly been crying before that, and Mick had worn the remnants of a blank, stony expression that Leonard knew well meant distress, even grief.

Ray had helped Leonard get up and checked his vitals while Mick had continued to get them out of there, then approached to stare challengingly at his partner. Then he’d hugged him—before turning gruffly away to return to the captain’s chair, from which he’d demanded answers while setting a course for the outpost.

Once the shock had worn off, his friends might very well have decked him for causing such worry, if it hadn’t been that he was, one, miraculously alive after all and, two, already dealing with a headache from his out-of-control landing. They’d been stunned by what he’d told them, and Raymond had been quite intrigued, spouting off about multiverse theory and the role of the wellspring-- although Leonard wasn’t quite in the mood to talk about it more, not yet.

Sara is still considering him, there in their room, and Leonard glances away. He doesn’t want this to be a thing. He’d done what he had to, to destroy the Oculus, and he was glad to still be alive. Now, he’d like to leave it behind him.

Sara nods, as if to herself. Then she reaches up and wraps her fingers around the edges of his jacket, giving him a gentle shake.

“You…stupid…hero,” she tells him, punctuating each word with another shake. “And here you said it wasn’t on your resume.”

Leonard shakes his head, wincing as it aches. “Oh, no,” he objects. “I didn’t do this to be some kinda hero. It’s just…” He pauses. “Someone had to. And there wasn’t anyone else.”

Sara’s smile is a combination of a smirk and something far softer. “Oh, Leonard,” she says. “Don’t you realize by now? That’s just what a hero is.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> After this, I'll be revising "Ripples in Time" a little and then adding two new chapters to that interlude. That will cover the events of Sara and Leonard visiting Star City. Then, on to the final chapters!


	17. Chances Are I'll See You

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's the first of the three "Legendary" chapters--and then this story will be done! The final two are done, so it won't be long.
> 
> Bear in mind that the three chapters of "Ripples in Time" took place between chapter 16 and this chapter. Many thanks to LarielRomeniel for the beta!

“You’re all back,” Rip marveled, scanning them as they stood there, in the same lot in which he’d met them with the Waverider five months—or more—ago. “I wasn’t sure…”

He shakes his head, smiling a little. It’s a sad smile, but there’s something in it that’s different, Sara thinks. Resolution. His son is saved; he’s honoring his wife’s sacrifice. It wasn’t all for nothing. And now…

“Savage isn’t dead yet,” Leonard drawls, in his uncanny way of following her thoughts. “I think we’re all here for that.” He folds his arms. “Mission’s not done.”

“He needs to burn,” Mick rumbles in agreement.

Rip inclines his head to the other men. “Indeed, Mr. Snart, Mr. Rory. However, we still have to find him, which is now somewhat more difficult—and it wasn’t easy before.” He decloaks the Waverider, however, and waves them toward it. “So. Let’s get started. Dr. Palmer and Ms. Saunders are on board.”

Sara tilts her head toward Rip as the group—her and Leonard, Stein and Jax and Mick—start for the ship.

“How’s Jonas?” she asks quietly.

Rip’s smile is conflicted, but real. “Well enough,” he says, pausing as the hatch opens. “Tucked away safely at the Refuge. And your younger selves have been restored to the timeline.”

“We gathered,” Jax tells him with amusement in his voice as they enter the ship. “Given that Mrs. Stein and…” He pauses, a grin overtaking his face. “…my folks remember us just fine.”

Sara stops too, a laugh escaping her as she registers the words. A smile spreads over Leonard’s face, and even Mick makes a pleased noise. He claps Jax on the back and the younger man staggers a little, still grinning.

Rip, who’d moved ahead of them, halts and turns, looking incredulous.

“Warning your father,” he says slowly, “it worked?”

“Yeah.” Jax smiles at him. “You were right, Captain. I guess time wanted to see my dad and I back together.” He shakes his head as Stein beams at him. “I nearly fell over when I opened the door and he was there. And it’s weird. I had to get used to a lot of new memories—a lifetime--pretty fast. But it’s worth it. I remember…birthday parties and long talks and my dad cheering at my games…”

His smile grows a little rueful. “And getting in trouble for a lotta stupid kid stuff. But it’s good. It’s all good.” He steps forward, nodding to Rip, a greater self-confidence in his body language that Sara can’t help but be aware of. “And now you got time with your boy, too, Captain. So let’s get this done with so you can get back to him.”

Rip’s smile is wistful and pleased. “And so you can get back to your father, Mr. Jackson. And your mother. I hope she wasn’t too worried that I…” He glances at Stein, who looks a little sheepish under his broad smile. “…we rather kidnapped you for months.”

“She wasn’t happy,” Jax allows as they move onto the bridge. “But my dad told her not to worry too much.” He nods as the captain lifts an eyebrow. “Yeah, he remembered. Sort of. He said once that he dreamed I warned him about a bomb in Mogadishu, the day I was born.” He shakes his head. “Then he sort of blinked and laughed and said of course that wasn’t possible.”

“The human mind can twist itself in knots trying to comprehend time travel,” Rip murmurs. “Well, Mr. Jackson, I am truly glad. It seems this venture of ours has done good in more ways than I ever envisioned.” Then, in a quieter voice, “Miranda would be pleased.”

Ray and Kendra enter the bridge too, then, and the greetings take up a few moments. Ray was full of stories about Alex’s early words, and how he’s not only saying “Dada” and “Momma”—but also “book” and “robot.”

“More like ‘boo’ and ‘obot,’” Kendra murmurs to Leonard and Sara, amusement in her tone. “But I do think the intent was there.”

Rip lets this go on with remarkable patience for a while, but then he lifts a hand, asking them to have a seat or otherwise settle themselves. (Which they do with relative alacrity, for once, even Mick.) Then the captain lets out a long sigh, gives them a weary smile, and claps his hands together.

“Well, then,” he murmurs. “Let’s get to it.” He focuses on Kendra. “Ms. Saunders. During your time on Savage’s time ship, did he do or say anything…anything at all…that might be a clue? We are flying blind now, in more ways than one, and even a place to start would be appreciated.”

Kendra’s already nodding, exchanging a glance with Ray.

“He did…he took a blood sample from me,” she says, wrapping one hand around the other arm in what seems to be an almost subconscious gesture. “Said something about it being a key, but he stopped then.” She shakes her head. “He seemed annoyed, about Carter…the 2166 one, anyway. Khufu, Torvil... The Time Masters led Savage to believe we’d be taking him with us, too.”

Rip frowns at that, leaning on the holotable. “The Time Masters were hardly truthful with me, as I’m woefully aware of now,” he muses, “but they did seem to believe they really could dictate all of time. I can’t figure out why some things seem to have slipped past them. Why...”

He stops then. Sara realizes that he’s frowning in Leonard’s direction, and sighs. She knows her eyes had flicked in his direction, but it’s his story to tell, and she hadn’t meant...

Then she notices Mick, who’s fixing his friend with a far more direct glare—and more to the point, Ray, who’s giving Leonard the puppy eyes and not even bothering to hide it. Leonard, leaning against his jump seat, is steadfastly ignoring both of them, studying his nails and projecting an image of great boredom that certainly isn’t true.

Rip, of course, notices too.

"Mr. Snart,” he says with yet another sigh. “Is there something you should be telling me?”

Len’s silent a moment more, but then he lifts his shoulders in a lazy shrug, glances at Sara, glares at Mick and Ray and then transfers his gaze back to Rip.

“OK. Short version,” he drawls. “There was…someone…in the Oculus messing with the Time Masters and undoing some of what they were trying for. And some of the little stuff wound up changing bigger stuff. Added up. And the Time Masters didn’t always or even usually know about it.”

He stops then, chin going up, as if daring to Rip to try to get more out of him. Sara knows he’s still unsettled by his experience meeting his double—and, perhaps, a touch preoccupied with the man’s plight—and it’s clearly nothing he wants to discuss right here, in front of the team.

Rip stares at him with an expression that goes from stunned to putting pieces together. “And how do you know...” He stops, though, and shakes his head. “I want more information later,” he informs Leonard, who shrugs again. “But all right. We’ll leave that be and thank heavens for the gift.” He runs a hair through his hair in habitual distraction, then nods.

“OK,” the captain continues. “So, Savage wants a version of Mr. Hall. He has an array of varieties to choose from. Where, and more to the point, when...”

“But we left him right there,” Stein chimes in. “In 2166. Won’t he just go try to get the version there?”

Kendra’s intake of breath is audible.

“Savage even already had him then,” she marvels. “He just waited because he thought he was going to get both of us, together, wrapped up like a gift.”

Leonard straightened from his slouch, eyes narrowed, worry in his posture. Sara can read that even if not all the others can. “We left Torvil with the resistance,” he says sharply. “Savage will go there. Rip...”

But the captain’s already nodding, turning quickly and heading for his chair.

“We have to at least try, though it seems that we’re already running behind,” he says, “a day late and a dollar short, as usual. Strap in!”

* * *

This time, as the Waverider comes in low over London toward the resistance camp, no one’s shooting at them. Leonard decides that has to be a good thing, though Rip looks grim. He’s returning, yet again, to the vicinity of his wife’s death, and yet again, there’s nothing to be done.

It’s enough to make even a cynical crook sympathetic, though Leonard has no intention of letting the other man know that. Rip wouldn’t want sympathy from him anyway. Snark and distraction, that’s the ticket.

For the rebels, it’s been five days since the Legends had flown off with Savage in tow. Rip’s bringing the ship in two days after it’d been when he, Sara, Stein, Jax and Jonas had left before—as soon as possible due to time currents. Leonard doesn’t quite get the principles involved, though Mick grunts in understanding. That means Savage has had two days to get here and wreak havoc, even try to take his army over again—and find his traitorous daughter.

All cynicism aside, Leonard’s worried about the resistance. They’d been his kind of people. And, yes, Cassie. He and Sara may not be what she’d hoped they were—just a story told by a lonely child to explain the rescue she’d hoped would come—but he’ll admit a certain fondness for her. She’s a survivor. Like him. Like Sara.

There are a lot of people running this way and that as the Waverider swoops into the camp, but there doesn’t seem to be any sign of overt fighting or destruction. As soon as the hatch is down, Sara and Leonard leap out, weapons at hand, running toward the core of the camp, Mick, Ray and Kendra behind them. Somehow, they and the ship have apparently been identified, because no one fires at them, although lots of people turn to look.

Kendra, having the ability to hawk out and soar over their heads, does so, landing neatly by the command center even as the resistance commander emerges from her tent, staring at them.

“Carter...Scythian Torvil. The man we left here,” Kendra says urgently. “Where is he? Savage...”

But the other woman has already lifted a hand, nodding. “He’s all right,” she says, a frown crossing her features. “Or he will be. Savage roared in yesterday, did some damage—but he was just looking for Torvil. Stabbed him and then left, getting back on a ship much like yours, but smaller. And he was alone.” She looks back and forth at their faces. “What’s going on?”

Leonard frowns. “He didn’t try to take him?”

“No. Just hurt him.” She smiles a little despite the grim words. “Of course, we’ve also had some success getting through to Torvil, so he wasn’t the good soldier for Savage he was before. And...”

Kendra sighs even as Sara interrupts. “Savage didn’t bother trying to take over his army again?”

“No. Although he’d have found it more difficult than he might have believed.” The smile now is a touch vicious...and proud. “You were right, about his daughter. She’s been an asset, and more of Savage’s people than I would have thought are willing to follow her.”

“She’s OK?” Leonard asks before he can help himself. But then he sees the resistance leader’s eyes flick to over his shoulder, and he turns...just in time for Cassandra to halt in her tracks a few feet away, smiling at him and the others.

“You’re all right,” she says with relief. “I mean, I knew...but you flew off with... _him_...and then he was back yesterday...I was a little worried.”

“It’s a long story, kid,” Mick tells her a little gruffly. “And now we gotta find him again.”

Cassandra nods, but the resistance leader clears her throat and cuts in then. “Savage said something to Torvil,” she says, studying them. “He’s in the medical tent, recovering from the stab wound. Would you like to talk to him?”

Kendra takes a deep breath, but nods, exchanging a look with Ray. The older woman begins to lead them away, but she gives Cassandra a long speaking glance before she does so, and Leonard looks back at the younger woman in time to see an odd look cross her face.

Then Cassandra takes her own deep breath, nods to herself, and looks at Leonard and Sara. “I have something to show…tell you,” she says. “Will you come with me?”

She sounds...nervous? But excited too. Leonard frowns, but he also nods, as does Sara. They follow the other woman into the camp—Mick, showing his own sort of perception, stays behind—past tents and a few somewhat sturdier constructions. The camp’s looking more, well, solid than it had before; things seem to be going well enough, and he wonders about Cassandra’s role in that. Apparently, she’d won them over quickly.

The young woman in question leads them to one of the sturdier buildings, a solid framework covered with waterproofed canvas that seems to be shored up by other materials in a patchwork fashion. There’s a generator running outside, quietly and smoothly, and once inside, it’s clear why.

The computer monitors in the small room are old, especially by 2166 standards...they wouldn’t look too out of place in 2016.

“A few of the first people to revolt from Savage’s side to ours were the archivists and record keepers who worked in the citadel, and many of the scientists,” Cassandra says, turning and holding out her hands somewhat proudly. “They didn’t like what he was doing with their knowledge.” A frown crosses her face. “And it was...dangerous...to try to leave while Savage was around—more dangerous than I ever knew. Or maybe I didn’t want to know.”

She’s quiet a moment, then shakes her head. “Anyway, as soon as he was gone, a number of them simply packed up everything they could carry, on whatever form of media worked, and ran. Many came here.”

Sara lets out a long, low whistle as Leonard steps forward to peer at the screen of one of the monitors. Cassandra, sounding a little nervous again, continues. “We interview them and then find a place for them, in the structure of the camp. And we...we’re trying to make sure the records are backed up as much as possible. The originals—or the versions that were brought to us—are in safe-keeping elsewhere. But here is where we can access copies.”

Leonard hums thoughtfully, eyeing her. Cassandra glances at him, then away quickly, as if worried he’ll read something on her face.

“There’s a man whose main work was in DNA, genealogy, who was one of the first runaways to come here,” she says, very quietly. “I asked him to look at a blood sample for me, to compare it to others that had been...obtained.”

Sara makes a quizzical noise, but Leonard nods, watching the younger woman. Thinking about conversations, and a lost girl looking for a rescue straight out of a story. A Peter Pan, a Blue Fairy...a Hagrid. (What? He reads.)

“You were hoping you were someone else’s daughter,” he says quietly. “ _Our_ daughter. Right?”

Sara laughs a little, sounding rather nervous herself. It’s unusual—that’s a tone Leonard thinks he’s _never_ before heard in her voice—but rather understandable, given the conversation.

“You’re not, though,” she says, looking at Leonard, then back at Cassandra. “Right? I mean, you were born just, what, 20-some years ago?”

Cassandra nods. “Yes, in 2142,” she says. “And no, I’m not. I’m Savage’s daughter, after all.”

Sara lets out a long breath, but Leonard keeps his eyes on Cassandra and waits for the other shoe.

And then she drops it. “I am, however, your descendent.”

* * *

And just like that, Sara can’t breathe again.

Oh, she remembers Leonard musing that the younger woman—what, only five years younger than Sara herself right now—looked, and fought, like she could have been theirs. It was true, and it’d started some of her thoughts circling around what else a child of theirs might be like—but even after their “agreement” back in Star City, kids certainly weren’t a thing that were upmost in her thoughts or ambitions. Savage himself was still out there, and Sara intended to see a bit more of time before she went back home, maybe learn to pilot the Waverider a bit more...

“Our...both of us?” she manages finally, then winces. It’s not like there’s anyone else out there she’d be planning to have kids with. But she’s never really discussed the matter with Leonard, either, and while she knows he likes kids more than she’d once expected, that doesn’t mean it applies to fathering—or parenting--them himself.

“Your great-great-great granddaughter, as best he could tell from the DNA markers.” Cassandra nibbles her lip, glancing back and forth between them, looking increasingly upset. Leonard's own expression is still, frozen. “We don’t have complete records from that far back yet, though we’re still collecting them. I don’t know when, or what their name will be. Your son or daughter, I mean.” She blinks, then, and Sara belatedly realizes she’s on the verge of tears. “I’m sorry. I guess this wasn’t a good idea.”

But Leonard moves first, before she can turn away, and the notoriously touch-adverse crook puts a hand gently on her shoulder, drawing her attention. Cassandra, Sara suspects, is probably just as touch-adverse as Leonard, and probably for the same reason, but she looks up at him like he’s given her a gift, an expression that makes Sara hurt for her.

“Hey, kiddo,” Leonard tells her gently. “It’s OK. I get it. We’re family.” He glances over at Sara, something warm and hard to define in his gaze. “It’s just that...this is a lot to digest.”

Cassandra looks over at Sara, who at least feels up to giving her an encouraging nod. The younger woman grows a tiny smile, even though it still looks uncertain.

“I know,” she says with a sigh. “But...I felt you should know. And I...well...”

“I get it,” Leonard tells her. “Sometimes, knowing you got people out there in the world, it keeps you going.” He fixes her with a look that Sara, suddenly biting back hysterical laughter, thinks looks frighteningly paternal. “But family’s more than blood.”

He looks over at Sara, who can pretty much almost read his thoughts. _Sometimes it’s the guy who saved your life in juvie. Sometimes it’s the crew of a timeship. Sometimes it’s the little group of women and children who live at the house next door, decades before you were even born._

Cassandra’s smile grows a little. “I’m starting to learn that.”

* * *

Kendra and Ray aren’t back yet and Mick’s already left, so Sara and Leonard, after bidding Cassandra farewell, slowly make their way back to where the Waverider is parked on their own. Leonard’s hands are stuffed in his jacket pockets, and Sara has her arms wrapped around herself, and they’re both silent, more so than usual.

The hatch isn’t down, and although they could easily hail the ship and ask Gideon to lower it, Leonard seems uninterested in doing so. He moves off the side, near a copse of trees that had somehow survived all the war and violence Savage had to throw at the area, and Sara follows. And when he plants his back against a battered oak and relaxes into his habitual slouch, she follows suit.

For a long moment, they just study the oddly peaceful day. There’s a hint of tentative birdsong in the air, as if the local wildlife is there, resilient, but still trying to figure out if it’s safe to call attention to itself. Sara closes her eyes, enjoying the faint sunlight on her face, then finally opens them to glance over at Leonard.

“So,” she says. “We’re gonna have a kid.” She looks down at herself, self-consciously smoothing her White Canary leathers over a still-flat stomach. “I mean, not now, or even soon. Pretty sure Gideon would have said something.” She’s babbling. “But...a kid. Within the next few years, I’d presume.”

Leonard turns his head. Sara’s rather relieved to see a hint of a smile on his face. He shifts toward her, studying her a moment.

“Well, I guess we know we survive this whole Savage thing, at least ‘til I knock you up,” he drawls finally, humor in his tone, then shrugs. “Well, I will. You’ll get at least nine more months after that.”

It’s not really funny, but Sara lets out a huff of laughter anyway. He doesn’t seem upset so much as...pensive...not if he can make jokes like that.

“Yeah, well, given that I’ll have to do all the work of that portion of the enterprise, that’s only fair,” she retorts.

He lets out his own not-quite-a-laugh, then studies her, eyes serious. “You OK?”

It’s a good question. Sara’s not sure how to answer it.

“I...Leonard, I wasn’t even sure I could have kids,” she says haltingly, turning more fully toward him too. “Like you said. It’s a lot to digest.” She studies him in return. “And you? I mean, I know you kinda like kids—other people’s kids, anyway—but I wasn’t sure this was a thing you’d want, or even be OK with.”

Leonard tilts his head, and Sara watches his eyes go distant—but she can see that he’s thinking, and not just withdrawing, so she holds her peace and simply watches him. After a moment, he sighs, shaking his head.

“Me neither,” he says, very quietly. “I mean, you know what my dad was like. And...I tried my best with Lisa, but I wasn’t what she needed. I was just what was _there_. I didn’t do a great job.”

There’s a sort of pain in that admission that Sara doesn’t think she’s ever heard from him before. She moves closer, leaning against him and feeling the sigh that moves through his body as he puts an arm around her shoulders. It’s a reminder how far they’ve come, and she closes her eyes, resting her head on his shoulder.

“I’m not so sure she’d agree with you on that,” she murmurs. “Lisa.”

Another sigh and an even quieter: “Coulda done better.”

“I think the deal with parenting is that everyone could. I think that...you just do the best you can, and you hope.” It’s funny. She understands her parents better now than she ever has before in her life, Sara thinks. She thinks about the Gambit and she sighs, but even if she could change it now, she wouldn’t. Too many other things wouldn’t have happened.

The silence stretches. Sara opens her eyes and glances back toward the camp, wondering about Kendra and Ray. It can’t be easy, dealing with the reincarnated Carter, even—or especially—if he’s starting to break Savage’s control.

Something about the movement, though, seems to break Leonard from his reverie. He shakes his head and, to Sara’s disappointment, pulls his arm from her shoulders. But then he also moves his hands to her shoulders as she glances back at him, with a grip that’s gentle and strong, and when she looks up into his face, she sees an expression that’s determined and tentative at the same time.

“I’ll tell you one thing,” he tells her. “I’m sure that any kid I’d have with you would be...incredible.” A deep breath as Sara stares at him. “And I may not be good at the...the whole dad thing...at all, but I'll do the best I can. And I figure you won’t let me fuck up too badly.”

It’s honest and brave and so...well, sweet...that Sara has to take a minute to respond. She gazes up at him wordlessly for long enough that she sees him tense and start to reach for his habitual snark and ice to defuse the moment.

“Same back at you, OK?” she says before he can, reaching up to lay a hand along his jaw. “I mean, this scares me to death...more than things that probably _should_ have scared me a lot more, over my lifetimes...but I trust you. We’ll figure this parenthood stuff out.”

A corner of Leonard’s mouth ticks up. “I kinda think we’ve already figured part of it out. Certainly been having a lot of fun practicing.”

Sara’s startled into a laugh. “A point. But...”

But there’s a rustle of feather then, and they both look up as Kendra wings in to land neatly nearby. She doesn’t look upset, not quite, but she does look very, very focused, and the look she gives Sara and Leonard is more hawklike than even her wings.

“We have a lead,” she says. “Let’s go.”


	18. Somewhere in My Dreams Tonight

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, this is a doozy. There's a lot of talking in the first half of this one. (Balanced by lots of action in the back half, though!) But I needed to have the team working things out in a way that felt believable to me (and, oh, I love my team banter!). And I really wanted to get into what the various team members were thinking at this point. Hope you enjoy! Many thanks to LarielRomeniel for the beta.

As soon as everyone’s back inside the ship, Rip gets them into the air and then into the timestream before they settle down for a team meeting. Kendra’s the focus of a lot of eyes as she paces the bridge, expression thoughtful, before stopping and turning to face them all.

Leonard, slouched in a jump seat with one foot hooked over his other knee, considers her with a slight smile. They’ve all changed quite a bit, he thinks, yet again. This focused woman—a far cry from the somewhat uncertain former barista who’d gotten on the ship—is no exception.

“Torvil--who’s a lot more coherent now, by the way--said that...that Savage was gunning for him, that he wanted his blood, just like he wanted mine,” she says, wrapping a hand around her other arm again. “And he stabbed him for it—not the best way to go about the process, I suppose, but the quickest way to get in and out of there. Although Savage did take the time to gloat.”

Raymond shrugs a little from where he’s sitting, watching his wife like she’s the best thing ever. “Don’t they always?”

Kendra gives him a quick smile, then looks at Rip. “Apparently, Savage said that our blood, Car...Torvil’s and mine, apparently from any incarnation, is the key to unlocking some sort of ‘Thanagarian technology.’” She shakes her head. “Something that, with that key, will let him ‘erase time itself’ and become…become a god.” Despite the grim words, she smiles again, just a little. “No word on if that was accompanied by a diabolical laugh, but it probably was. He’s hitting all the clichés.”

Jax shakes his head in amazement. “And he just... _told_ Torvil this?”

Kendra nods. “I get the impression he was quite pleased to brag to someone about his lovely plan,” she says drily.

Leonard snorts. “Like you said,” he drawls. “Hitting all the clichés. Classic bad guy speech. Never quite got the point of it myself.”

Sara elbows him from her position next to him, and he smirks. But Rip’s staring off into the distance, eyes a little wide and wild, and then he whirls, tapping at the screen next to him.

“Thangarian. That’s the race of extraterrestrials that the Time Masters used to justify setting Savage up as the world’s leader,” he says urgently. “Gideon? Do you have any more information on Thanagar or its people?”

“Very little beyond its basic location, Captain Hunter,” the AI says promptly, if somewhat apologetically. “The Time Masters apparently kept whatever they knew about that a closely guarded secret, even from the AIs they needed to guide their timeships.”

_This_ AI sounds a bit miffed. Leonard lifts an eyebrow at Sara, but she’s just listening intently, a frown on her face.

“Did they tell Savage about the Thanagarians?” Stein wonders out loud. “I can’t imagine the Time Masters would have wanted him to, quote, ‘erase time itself.’”

Jax nods. “Yeah, that’s _gotta_ be an extracurricular for our not-so-favorite psychopath.”

“That, I cannot say, Mr. Jackson,” Rip tells him. “But...”

Kendra holds up a hand. “Wait. He told Torvil something else too. That...” She bites her lip. “That the Thanagarians gave the three of us—me and Khufu, and Savage himself—our powers.”

The team digests that while Raymond looks at her, a worried expression on his face. “But...how would they do that? You got your powers when...”

“When Savage killed you and the meteorites hit,” Sara finishes. “So...a meteorite contained the technology?”

Leonard gives her a rather impressed look, and she smirks at him, whispering ““I pay attention too.”

“Yes...” Rip mutters to himself, continuing to study the screen before him. “The chronothermic reaction could be explained by that. But...how...”

“That rock’s gotta be long gone, British,” Mick mutters, finally speaking up from where he’s slouched in his own jump seat, holding a bottle of something he’d apparently acquired at the resistance camp. “Rubble. You think he’s travelin’ back there, Big Bird? To where...when...you’re from?”

Kendra darts him a glance and a roll of the eyes—but also a smile—for the nickname. “I don’t know. Maybe,” she muses.  “So…1700 BC? But what’s the blood connection?”

“Something…well, magic?” Sara cuts in suddenly. “I’ve encountered that before.”

Leonard can’t resist. “Any sufficiently advanced technology…” he drawls.

“….is indistinguishable from magic,” Stein finishes. “Clarke’s Third Law.” He gives Leonard a smile. “A good point, Mr. Snart. Presumably, the Thanagarians have hit that point of advancement.”

“So Savage has blood from both Big Bird here and from Bird Guy,” Mick observes. “And he can…what? Dump it on a big rock and say some mumbo jumbo? Like the ‘Eyes Wide Shut’ scene from before? And the hell’s that gonna do?”

“ ‘Erase time itself,’ ” Rip muses. “But how? Is he going back to get the original meteorite? That doesn’t seem to work…” His eyes widen then, and he turns back to his screen, but the others mostly ignore him for the moment.

“I do wonder how he’s defining becoming a god,” Kendra says thoughtfully. “I mean, I was a priestess of Horus. Our gods, as we thought of them then, weren’t incarnate…not in the land of the living, for the most part. Unless Savage thinks he’s going to change all that.”

Steins shakes his head. “That’s impossible.”

Leonard can’t resist _again_. “Clarke’s First Law,” he tells Stein smugly, getting a blank look from nearly everyone else and a look that mingles great amusement and slight annoyance from the older man. (And a quiet chuckle from Mick, whom Leonard knows isn’t inclined to let the others know he actually reads.)

Mick grunts then. “Be more than willing to help Savage into whatever afterlife he wants,” he says, taking a swig from his bottle.

“You’re not alone in that,” Raymond tells him seriously. “I…”

But Rip turns back to them again, a certain satisfaction on his face. “I think I might have an idea.” He points at Kendra. “The meteor shower, the one that started all this, back in 1700 BC. It was the first recorded instance of a rare alignment between Earth and Thanagar.”

He pauses dramatically and Leonard rolls his eyes. “Spit it out, Rip!”

The captain gives him a weary look but continues speaking. “There have been a few more alignments over the centuries. And one of them was in 1958. Just before we arrived there, actually.”

Jax snaps his fingers and looks at Stein. “Savage had a meteorite there! That’s how he…uh…”

“Made you into Bird Boy,” Mick observes.

“Well…yeah.”

“So what are you getting at?” Sara asked, studying Rip. “You want us to go back to 1958? We can’t cross our own timelines, can we?”

“Indeed, you should not, Ms Lance,” Rip tells her. “However, we’re still parsing this out. Gideon, what were the years closest to 1958 when there was also an alignment between Earth and Thanagar?”

“1975 and 2021, Captain,” the AI says crisply.

Leonard frowns. “So, you think he wants to get the tech from all those rocks? He’s already immortal. How much more immortal can he get?”

Rip sighs. “I do think he wants the meteorites, yes. But I don’t think he wants to use the Nth metal technology embedded in there.” He scans them. “I think he wants to blow it up.”

Mick nods into the thoughtful silence. “Could get behind that.”

The captain points at him. “Ah, Mr. Rory, but I think you would not. Such an explosion…it would destroy the world.”

“But why would Savage want that?” Raymond asks, looking around. “He wants to _rule_ the world. You can’t rule what isn’t there.”

But Stein holds up a hand, and Leonard tilts his head to the side at the sudden rapt look on the professor’s face. “Wait,” the older man says. “There’s a reason you mentioned multiple years, alignments and meteorites, isn’t there?” He takes a deep breath. “If he detonates, say, three meteorites—and their technology--in three different time periods, would happen?”

Jax cuts in, looking a little puzzled. “How can you destroy the world three times in three different times?”

“You can't,” Rip tells him. “It would create a temporal paradox.”

“Which would result in a timequake that would return the Earth to the point of the first chronothermic reaction,” Stein concludes. “Ancient Egypt.”

In a twisted way, it’s genius. “But this time around, Savage not only has a timeship, he’s immortal and knows it, and probably he has other future tech, too,” Leonard says slowly. “Peachy.”

Jax lets out a long breath. “OK, it's official,” he says, looking around. “This is the craziest bad guy plan in the history of bad guy plans.”

“I don't think that sanity is a yardstick by which Vandal Savage can be measured,” Rip says with a sigh.

Raymond is starting to process Stein’s words, and his eyes are bright. “Savage would have to detonate the meteorites at times when the planets were in alignment, wouldn’t he?”

“I believe so.” Rip shakes his head. “I can’t be sure that three times, as the professor said, is the amount he’ll use…”

“I bet it is,” Sara tells him. “As I said, I’ve had some experience with magic.” Her lips twitch, although maybe only Leonard sees it. “And magic users. Three seems to mean something, ritually speaking.”

Kendra nods. “The number three had a great deal of meaning back in Egypt, in my first life,” she adds. “Triads and plurality and a lot of symbolization. I wouldn’t be surprised if Savage defaulted to that.”

“So, three different versions of Savage will have to do this at once?” Leonard asks. “What’s he gonna do, go back and tell himself what to do?” He gives Rip a wry look. “I thought interacting with your past self meant bad things?”

Rip doesn’t take the bait, but he does give Leonard a wry look in return. “Well, Mr. Snart, if we manage to complete our mission, it _will_ mean bad things for Savage, will it not?”

Jax speaks up. “So if Savage plans on blowing up the world three times, how do we stop him?”

Stein’s eyes, Leonard thinks, are impressively icy. “We don't,” the professor says. “We kill him.”

Mick makes a surprised and admiring sound, and Leonard lifts an eyebrow and smirks. “Why, professor, I’m impressed,” he drawls. “I do believe we’re rubbing off on you.”

Stein smirks back, and Kendra moves toward them, looking intrigued. “How?” she asks.

The professor nods to her. “We've always known that only you, or perhaps a reincarnation of Mr Hall, could kill Savage using items exposed, as you were, to the meteor's radiation,” he says. “Now, the radiation works both ways. It gave Savage his immortality, but...”

Leonard makes a thoughtful noise of his own as the pieces come together. Rip nods too. “It also makes him vulnerable,” the captain breathes.

“And Savage is about to unleash the radiation from three meteorites in three different time periods,” Raymond concludes, now sounding truly excited.

“Triple the exposure,” Jax adds.

Stein inclines his head “Yes.” He looks grimly pleased. “Which should be sufficient to render Savage mortal.”

Sara chuckles, a sound that Leonard decides is really somewhat bloodthirsty. “And then all we got to do is kill Savage three times,” she says with satisfaction.

“Indeed.” Stein scans them all, then looks at Rip. “Gideon can navigate the Waverider,” he says, “and we can split into teams. One in 1958, one in 1975, and one in 2021.”

Rip, who should probably be the one making that call, doesn’t countermand it. He takes a deep breath, then lets it out slowly. Leonard feels another prickle of sympathy at how the man must be feeling, with a way to finally beat his old enemy in his sights. (Damn, he’s gone soft.)

“Yes,” the captain says finally. “Dr. Palmer, Mr. Rory—you’ll go to 1958. I suggest you familiarize yourself with the maps of the area again. Martin, Jax, Sara, to 1975. I believe I know where—and I bet you can guess too. And Mr. Snart, Ms. Saunders…with me, to 2021.” He lifts his chin, eyes distant. “It’s time to end this.”

* * *

They don’t have much time to get ready or to do anything else, and part of Sara is glad for it. She wants a moment with Leonard, that’s it, but first she changes into her full White Canary leathers, complete with the jacket, and visits the armory to make sure she has a full complement of knives, her bo, and other weapons tucked away

As she’s turning for the door, though, she very nearly literally bumps into Kendra, who halts in surprise. They both laugh a little, and Sara studies her friend, recalling a thought she had earlier.

“You OK?” she asks. “Torvil…”

Kendra gives her a tiny smile. “Torvil,” she says with a sigh, “really was doing better. They’d broken the programming, but he didn’t remember anything of his past lives. Just that, perhaps, he’d known me…Chay-Ara.” She shakes her head. “That would be generations in the future. I suppose it’s possible he has a…a me out there. I don’t know. But he was pretty dedicated to helping the resistance now. He’ll be OK.” She meets Sara’s eyes. “And so am I.”

“Good.”

But Kendra’s not done. “And you?” She folds her arms, tucking her helmet under her arm. “I noticed Savage’s daughter pulled you off for something. And you and Snart looked pretty serious when I arrived back at the Waverider.”

It’s perceptive. Sara considers. It’s so much to go into right now, but…

“We’re going to have a kid,” she says with a sigh, then blinks as Kendra’s eyes widen. “Oh, hell. Not now!” She runs a hand over her hair. “I mean, not anytime soon. Sometime. Because…well, Cassandra’s our descendant. Leonard’s and mine.”

Kendra stares at her. “Well,” she says after a moment, “that makes my situation seem a little less weird. Or at least comparatively weird.”

Sara shrugs helplessly. “Yeeaaahhh. I mean…I don’t think I’m unhappy about it. I’m _not_ unhappy about it. But it’s a weird feeling. Knowing it’s coming.”

“Boy, do I hear you about that.” Kendra steps aside as Sara joins her. “Well. If you’re not pregnant yet, at least you know you’ll make it through this.”

Sara chuckles. “That’s what Leonard said.”

Kendra does too. “I’m trying to figure out if I should be disturbed by that.”

* * *

Leonard and Sara exchange a long kiss before Sara vaults out the Waverider’s hatch into 1975 Norway (followed by Jax and, somewhat more slowly, Stein). Nothing more, nothing less. They know what they mean to each other. The words don’t need to be said.

Still, as Leonard crouches behind part of the rooftop in 2021 St. Roch with Kendra and Rip, he wishes he’d said _something_. He’s not sure what. Nothing so cliché as “I love you”—Sara knows. But…

Savage makes his entrance onto the rooftop then, walking over to the meteorite in its crate with a vial of blood in his head, and Leonard feels Kendra tense next to him. He glances her way and sees how her eyes are narrowed, the straight line of her mouth, the rage in every bit of her posture. Savage has been plaguing her and hers for so long it’s almost hard to wrap his brain around, and now he’s keeping her from her son and her future.

Rip’s noticed it too. “Patience, Ms. Saunders,” he says very quietly. “Our teams need to act simultaneously.”

* * *

In 1958 Harmony Falls, Mick stalks along next to Haircut, just barely keeping his need to torch something in hold now that they’re here. They saw the meteorite cut through the sky just a moment ago, and they’ll be at the site in moments.

Things, he thinks, have worked out better than they’d had any right to—he’s not Chronos anymore, he’s getting along with Snart again, they rescued Rip’s kid at least, the Time Bastards are scattered space dust, and Snart somehow survived blowing them up. (He’s still not quite clear on how that happened.) But that doesn’t change the fact that it was the Time Bastards and Savage who were the ones that started this whole mess, and while some of it’s been fun, a lot of it wasn’t.

It’s time for Savage to burn.

“When can I kill him?” he asks Haircut, hearing his voice come out harsher than he intends.

The other man misunderstands. “We have to wait for the meteor to go critical.”

Well, duh. Mick had listened, back at the Waverider. He’s just wondering how he’ll be able to tell.  “When's that?”

“When he starts the ritual in all three time periods.”

* * *

In 1975 Norway, a slightly younger Sara Lance lifts her voice in alarm. “Um, we got a nuclear bomb, here. Professor, Jax, we need you!”

The slightly older, slightly wiser one, hidden outside with Stein and Jax, just smiles as the younger man stretches a little to see his fiery Firestorm-self roar out of the building, bomb in hand.

“Oh, man, I forgot how much of a badass I was,” Jax says admiringly.

Sara smiles, then tenses. “Look.”

Outside the building now, Savage and his men are approaching another group, a large crate between them. Sara strains to hear but can’t quite manage it. Body language, though, makes the exchange quite clear.

Savage says something with an oily smile (does the man have any other kind?), spreading his hands out before him. The other man responds…and then everyone’s distracted as the bomb explodes not so far away, a fiery mushroom cloud rising into the sky before that past Firestorm pulls the energy into himself.

Everyone but Savage. The warlord grabs a gun and fires, turning, and the other men drop, probably without ever seeing what had happened.

Savage tosses the gun away with a laugh. “No,” Sara just barely hears. “I expected to take it from you by force.”

In one smooth motion, Savage opens a vial of blood and dribbles it out on the meteorite before him. And then he starts chanting in a language Sara can’t understand.

Huh. Go figure. Mick had been right.

* * *

Two other Savages in two other times follow suit. The chanting rises, and the watching Legends tense.

“Ah. Well... I think that's our cue,” Haircut says as he and Mick approach the oblivious Savage. Mick grunts in approval and readies his heat gun. It’s about time.

Of course, that’s when a shriek from behind them makes Ray spin. Ah, fuck, Mick thinks as he sees the hawk thing. Burning feathers stink—and he’s still gunning for Savage.

Haircut sighs.

“Really?” he asks Mick. “These guys again?”

Mick doesn’t think that deserves a response.

* * *

“Now!” Rip yells as he draws his gun and Savage’s voice climbs in triumph. Kendra spreads her wings and launches herself into the air, and Leonard, following on the ground with his cold gun firmly in hand, sees Savage whip around at the sound of those wings, the warlord’s eyes widening with what seems to be glee.

Well, Leonard’s pretty sure he’ll find the former high priestess a bit more of a battle than he’s expecting. And she’s not the only one. He aims his gun at a Savage lackey and fires, watching the man crash to the ground, glances up to track Kendra’s trajectory, and launches himself at another soldier who’s aiming for her.

“Keep them occupied!” Savage yells.

* * *

The meteorite is glowing. Sara nods to herself and glances at the other two. Jax’s smile is just a little vicious. He glances at Stein, the grin widening.

“You ready to show these fools what's really good?” he asks.

Stein grins back at him. “You have no idea.”

Sara smiles as she watches them merge in a swirl of fire and take off. Then she takes a deep breath, stepping out from behind the cover as Savage’s head jerks up to watch them and then snaps over to regard her.

“Glad we're past the point of worrying about the timeline,” she observes, snapping her bo out to full length. And then, finally--finally, after all the trials and the sacrifices and the plans gone wrong and right—she steps forward to face Vandal Savage.

The warlord smiles at her. There’s no real humor in the expression.

“Oh,” he oozes, “you're too late.”

Sara gives him a slow, smug smile.

“A Time Master's never late,” she informs him. And attacks.

* * *

Ray’s trying not to permanently harm Savage’s hawk creatures, but they’re keeping him busy. Concerned, he uses a breather to glance over toward Savage, hoping Mick has the dictator in hand.

He looks just in time to see Savage fly across the clearing, landing with a thud as Mick strides toward him, apparently happy to handle at least the preliminaries with his fists.

Oh. Well, Mick’s doing just fine.

* * *

Kendra knows she’s going to need to keep her head here. As she stoops toward Savage, knife in hand, she thinks briefly of Sara, and how her friend had described the bloodlust. Here, now, Kendra understands that better than ever. She can feel red rage trying to cloud her vision, all the years of fear and heartbreak and death coming to a head, here and now.

Savage’s rictus grin, she thinks, actually looks a little scared.

Good.

* * *

Jax soars through the air, pitching fireballs left and right, laughing a little with the sheer joy of finally getting here, ready to end Savage.

Well, he thinks, glancing down at where Sara’s fighting like it’s a dance. Or at least keeping the soldiers off her so _she_ can end Savage. That works.

_Focus, Jefferson!_

_I’m doing fine, Gray_ , he thinks back. _Let’s enjoy it while we can._

* * *

It takes a while, but Mick finally decides he’s beat the shit out of Savage enough. He pauses, pointing his heat gun at the man on the ground, suddenly weary. Time to end it.

Savage gapes up at him. “You can't kill me,” he roars despite his current position of weakness. “I'm immortal.”

Mick regards him in return. “Guess you haven't heard the news,” he says. And fires.

The flames, and the screams, are very satisfying.

* * *

The scene on the rooftop is chaotic enough, and Leonard’s focusing enough on trying to keep  others away from Kendra, that he completely misses that Rip’s in trouble--until the very moment he hears Kendra yell “Rip!” and he spins to see the captain fall off the side of the building.

Well, shit. He stares at the railing a moment, trying to steal himself to go see if the man needs rescue—or if he’s going to have to tell the kid why his dad, after everything, isn’t coming back.

Then he hears the hum of the Waverider engines.

Rip suddenly comes into view, arms folded, an obdurate expression on his face. Leonard lets out a breath he won’t admit is relieved. The asshole’s standing on top of the Waverider itself, rising into view like this is something he does every day.

Well, Leonard respects a good entrance. He inclines his head toward Rip, who does the same in return.

And then both of them turn in time to see Kendra grab Vandal Savage by the throat.

* * *

It’s been a good fight. Sara’s quite satisfied by the time she finally gets her bo braced securely against Savage’s throat,

She’s not that contract killer anymore. Leonard was right. But she’s still assassin enough to know that sometimes horrible things _have_ to be done. And as one of the people who can do them, she’ll shoulder that burden to protect others.

Sara pauses just a moment as she braces herself, listening to Savage’s choking noises. She thinks of the look on Miranda Hunter’s face as she bid her husband and son farewell.

And then she snaps Savage’s neck and lets him fall.

For Miranda.

* * *

“Goodbye, my love,” Rip hears Kendra hiss into Savage’s face—and then, like it’s a dream, he sees her shove her dagger into his chest.

Finally. Finally. _Finally_.

Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Snart step up behind them, and he has the sudden impression that the other man is going to say something. He doesn’t want to hear it. Instead, Rip pushes forward as Kendra steps back, catching Savage before he can sag, putting a hand on the knife and shoving and _twisting_ it.

Savage gasps in pain and…god help him, it feels good. It feels _wonderful_.

“Ah, you can feel it, can't you?” Rip hisses at him. “Things are different this time. You're mortal.”

Savage grimaces at him, blood staining his mouth. He’s dying. Oh bloody hell, he’s finally dying. “But yet, my death does not save the life of your wife,” the man breathes “I may die, but you—and your son—will live knowing that you failed to save the life of...”

Rip, red rage clouding his vision, twists the knife more. “Aah!” the warlord gasps.

“Never speak her name again!” Rip commands, tears standing in his eyes. Then he hauls off and shoves Savage…into the power transformer nearby, the unprotected transformer, which he’d thought might be necessary.

Savage….well, Savage goes up like a candle. Electricity crackles, and the watchers have to shield their eyes at the flash. The surge spreads, throughout the city and maybe farther, and the dark shape that was a once-immortal warlord falls to the ground.

Rip closes his eyes.

Finally.

* * *

Leonard lets out a long, slow breath, glancing at Kendra, who’s staring at the dead shape of Vandal Savage with dry eyes. After a moment, the former high priestess looks up at him--and then he sees the woman he’s become somewhat fond of behind her eyes again.

He can’t imagine what it must feel like for her. Like how he’d felt when he’d killed Lewis, maybe, except without any mixed feelings (he’ll admit those had existed, in his head) and thousands more years of pain.

“You OK?” he asks.

After another moment, Kendra smiles at him.

“Yes,” she says, spreading her wings wide and stretching. “Yes, I really think I am.”

He’s about to respond when the roar of the Waverider engines echoes again, and even Rip’s head snaps around. The ship lands, although it immediately takes off again as soon as its three passengers debark, and Leonard immediately starts for the first of those passengers.

Sara gives him a slightly tired but utterly triumphant smile. He hadn’t been worried about her, not really, but it’s still good to see her, here and whole and—holy hell, it’s done, isn’t it? It’s really done.

And right on the heels of that thought comes: What’s next?

Leonard shoves it away. He’ll cross that bridge when he has to.

They stop just a little apart. Sara turns her head as Firestorm passes them, talking to Rip and Kendra with great excitement, then looks back at him.

“You need to see Stein and Jax’s nifty new trick,” she tells him lightly. “Though they got my boots wet.”

Leonard lifts an eyebrow. “Oh?”

“Yeah.” Sara takes a step closer. “I...”

The Waverider reappears then, and they both turn to watch it. Mick’s the first one off, followed closely by Raymond. Leonard lets out another relieved breath. Have they really all made it through this?

“Damn it!” his friend curses as he vaults over the edge of the wall and studies Savage’s still (and still slightly smoking) form. “I wanted to be the one to kill him. Again, I mean.”

He glances up and meets Leonard’s eyes. The men exchange a grim but real smile.

But then Sara speaks up again. “Um...” she says, as Leonard spins to look at her. “I don't think our problems are over yet."

The meteorite is still glowing, and it’s getting brighter. That can’t be good. But Firestorm’s there, then, reaching for it as Jax yells “I'm on it!”

“On what?" Mick wonders.

The whole thing glows even more, but whatever Jax thought was going to happen, doesn’t. “It's not working,” the younger man says with puzzlement and alarm.

But Raymond approaching now. “I got this!”

He doesn’t “got” it—his weapon or whatever it is fizzles out with no change to the increasingly glowing rock. And Leonard’s alarmed enough now that he doesn’t even make a crack about performance issues.

“What happens if only one of these goes off?" Sara asks Rip, reaching out to wrap her fingers around Leonard’s.

The former Time Master, ripped from his moment of triumph to something that’s clearly the opposite of that, is simply staring at the meteorite. “Uh... time will remain intact,” he manages. “The world? Not so much.”

There’s not enough time to panic, not really. Leonard has a second to wonder if freezing the hell out of the damned thing would help at all before Firestorm claps his hands together.

“OK, guys, let's fly this thing out of here,” he says, apparently addressing Kendra and Raymond.

But the former shakes her head. “To where?” she asks. “We would never get it far enough away."

“Maybe the Waverider can,” Raymond says. “Rip, we need...”

But the Waverider’s rising already, above them, as the team members turn and stare, its tractor beam fastens on the meteorite, lifting it as the ship itself lifts into the air.

And Rip is still standing there, staring at it, too.

“Gideon,” he breathes. “What are you _doing_?”

"I'm flying the Waverider into the sun, with the meteor on board," the AI informs them, her voice precise and emotionless in their comms.

“And you on it too,” Sara retorts, glancing at Rip, whose eyes are wide and horrified.

“Indeed. I guess this is goodbye." Then, more quietly, “I’m sorry, captain...Rip. The jumpship is where we left it. You can use that to return to Jonas. Be safe...be well.”

Leonard winces at the look on Rip’s face, glancing at Sara. She returns his expression, as do the now-separated Jax and Stein and the others. Even Mick’s wearing the slightly blank expression Leonard recognizes as Mick dealing with feelings.

“Gideon,” the captain says quietly, staring into the sky, oblivious to the rest of them, even though the ship is no longer visible, “please don’t do this.”

“I see no other choice,” the AI tells him. “And...I may very well be the last of my kind, captain. What is there, now, for me?”

It’s Mick, unexpectedly, who speaks up next. “What’s next for any of us?” he asks gruffly, glancing at Leonard. “I mean...don’t know I can jus’ go back to stealing and burning shit. We’re all weird losers in our own right. Y’fit right in.”

Stein laughs a little. “I prefer ‘unique,’ Mr. Rory. But a good point. Perhaps we all belong together.”

Rip’s found his voice again. "Gideon!” he says. “Are you...are you still there?”

“I'm still here, Captain.” But the AI’s voice is faint.

“Someone needs to protect time. We need you for that mission. I need you.” He shakes his head. “I’ve lost…so much. I can’t lose you. Please.”

Silence. Leonard hears Sara’s intake of breath. They wait. And...

“Perhaps, I'm not yet ready to die," they hear faintly.

Rip runs a hand over his hair. “Is the solar ray still functional?"

“In fact...operating at...rate of 12,000 percent."

The captain nods, eyes distant. “Transfer all available power to the time drive,” he says, eyes still fixed on the sky, on something too far away for him to see. “Get ready to eject the meteor, and hope that you have enough power for one last jump.”

Leonard starts to ask, but...

* * *

“What happens if only one of these goes off?" Sara asks Rip, reaching out to wrap her fingers around Leonard’s. He shakes his head roughly, suddenly feeling like he’s missing something.

The former Time Master, ripped from his moment of triumph to something that’s clearly the opposite of that, is simply staring at the meteorite. “Uh... time will remain intact,” he manages. “The world? Not so much.”

There’s not enough time to panic, not really. Leonard has a second to wonder if freezing the hell out of the damned thing would help at all before Firestorm claps his hands together.

“OK, guys, let's fly this thing out of here,” he says, apparently addressing Kendra and Raymond.

But the former shakes her head. “To where?” she asks. “We would never get it far enough away."

“Maybe the Waverider can,” Raymond says. “Rip, we need...”

But the captain’s shaking his head, looking just as confused as Leonard feels. Then he focuses on the Waverider—did the ship look that much the worse for wear before?—and starts for it, very nearly running.

“Where’s the meteorite?” Sara asks suddenly.

* * *

By the time they all make it on to the ship, Rip’s pretty much collapsed in the captain’s chair, looking horribly relieved and like he rather desperately needs a nap. Sara, who’s really just about had it with not knowing what the hell is going on, raises her voice.

“What happened to the meteor?” she asks sharply, seeing Leonard nod in agreement. But it’s Gideon, not Rip, who answers.

“I flew it into the heart of the sun, Ms. Lance,” the AI says, an odd tone in her voice that Leonard doesn’t think he’s ever heard before. “I angled the ship to eject the meteorite before impact, and then time-jumped away.”

“G!” Jax exclaims, sounding appalled. “You could have been destroyed."

“Should have been," Mick rumbles. “Don’t _do_ that shit.”

Sara sighs, then glances at Leonard. But her lover is watching Rip with an odd expression on his face, like he thinks there’s something more going on. Rip meets his eyes, then smiles a little, glancing at Sara.

“Now,” he announces, “who fancies a return trip to 2016?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just one chapter left...
> 
> I really hope someone got the Clarke's First Law joke. :)


	19. Baby, You're the Best I've Ever Met

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow. I can't believe this is done! Thank you all for reading this rewrite of the back half of Legends season one (and the other stories in the series). I was able to work in a lot of things I wanted to address and deal with, and I truly love this story and these characters.
> 
> Many thanks, as always, to LarielRomeniel, for being a wonderful and patient beta reader.

They all do, actually, even if it’s just to check in with the friends and family they’d seen before. After the jump—their last one?—Leonard studies the others as they rise from their seats. They’re all such old hands at time travel now that no one’s showing any side effects.

Kendra looks around the bridge with a sigh, stretching her arms over her head. “I can't believe it's over," she murmurs.

“Well, for some of you, yes,” Rip tells them. “My journey, it seems, is only just beginning.” A pause. “Mine and Gideon’s.”

Mick grunts. “How does that work?” he says, eyeing the captain. “Savage is three times dead.”

Rip nods. He’d been expecting the question, Leonard thinks. “The Time Masters are no longer of growing concern, due to our destruction of the Oculus.” He tips his head toward Leonard. “Someone needs to be responsible for protecting the timeline. Who better than a former Time Master? And any of you who'd like to join me.”

It’s not the surprise it could have been. Leonard studies the other man another moment and then looks at Sara—who also doesn’t seem surprised.

Well. Looks like there are more decisions to be made.

* * *

When Leonard enters their room behind her, Sara pauses in her packing, staring down at the bag she’s putting together for an overnight in Star City. Rip had already said that whomever chooses to leave the ship doesn’t have to clean things out immediately—that they can do so after this brief sojourn. Still, packing up her things from their combined belongings is giving her a little bit of a stomachache.

“Well,” she says, without looking up. “Guess we need to have one of those talks again. Leonard, I...”

But a low chuckle interrupts her—and then a gentle hand on her shoulder applies just enough pressure to turn her around, and Sara accepts it. She leans back against the bed as Leonard puts one arm on either side of her, looking down at her with undisguised affection and amusement—both of which seem to be a good sign.

“Sara,” he drawls, looking her in the eyes. “You know I’m going to stick with you no matter what you decide to do. Or you should know that.” A pause. “At least, if you want me to.”

She’d hoped for that, but it’s still a relief to hear it. Sara closes her eyes and takes a deep breath, smiling. Leonard studies her, then nods.

“I still gotta a few things to figure out, though,” he says. “Lisa’s still outta town and I’m not sure where, so that’s kinda beside the point right now. But I need to have another conversation as well.”

Sara’s quite sure she knows what that conversation is, and with whom. And she thinks Mick might surprise him. She reaches out and twines her arms around Leonard’s neck, drawing a smile as she continues to study this man who’s become so unexpectedly beloved over this whole amazing mission.

“I think I know,” she tells him. “What I want to do. What I’d like _us_ to do. But first, I need to have a conversation, too.”

Leonard nods. He shifts a little as he moves his hands to her hips and pulls her against him a little more. “Thought as much.”

Of course he did. “Meet you back here?” she asks, smoothing her fingers over the fine hairs on the back of his neck and getting a hum of appreciation for the touch. Ah, how things have changed. “One way or another?”

He nods again, a smirk moving over his lips. “Unless I find you first,” he murmurs, then ducks his head to kiss her.

The others might have to wait a little more time to disembark.

* * *

Leonard, to be honest, had expected to see Sara off at Star City and then follow Mick off the ship back in Central. Instead, as he leans against the hatch and watches her stroll off into her city, he’s suddenly aware that Mick has joined him there, standing a few feet away and dividing his attention between his former partner and Sara’s departing form.

“You ain’t getting out here?” Mick asks after a moment.

Leonard shrugs smoothly, straightening out of his slouch and regarding his old friend. “She’s got some people to talk to,” he says. “Figured you and I could get a drink at Saints and Sinners, hit some old haunts.”

Mick grunts. “Pretty sure they got dive bars here too,” he points out. “Wanna go find one?”

Leonard blinks. Then: “Sure,” he says. “Let’s go.”

* * *

It’s been a long time since Sara’s set foot in Toro’s Sushi. She stops just inside the door and takes a deep breath, inhaling faint scents of ginger, wasabi and the clean sea-tinged scent of fresh seafood, then scans the room for Laurel.

This has been one of her sister’s favorite places for as long as she can remember, though Laurel had requested it this time because, as she’d said, it’s accessible in practice and not just name. It only takes her a moment for Sara to see her at a table by the back window, waving a hand and smiling.

“I wasn’t expecting to see you again so soon!” Laurel says as Sara approaches and leans over to give her a hug. “Is everything OK? Where’s Leonard?”

For just a moment, Sara relishes the acceptance there. She drops into the seat opposite Laurel’s chair with a laugh, scoops up a pair of chopsticks and snags a piece of spicy tuna with crispy rice even though her sister swats at her hand. “Everything’s fine. Leonard’s giving us some sister time.” She pauses, then lowers her voice. “We did it, Laurel. We beat Savage. We did it.”

Laurel’s eyes widen. “You did? Are you coming home now?”

And here they are already. Sara glances downward, trying to look like she’s just messing with the chopsticks. And she tries to think of what to say, which isn’t anything she’s had much luck with since Rip had made his offer—and since Sara had realized what decision she wants to make. Leonard’s easy acceptance of whatever she decides had helped, but it doesn’t change this moment here and now.

Her sister, of course, isn’t fooled.

“You’re not, are you?” she asks gently. “You’re going to keep time traveling.”

There’s something in her voice… Sara glances upward. She’s stunned to see a slight smile on Laurel’s face, and…and is that pride?

“I thought you’d be upset!” she blurts out. “I mean, I’m abandoning you again, running off again…”

Laurel mock-scowls at her, but she can’t hold the expression for long. “Well, I’ll miss you. You have to come visit,” she instructs. “But you seem happy about this Sara. Like you’ve found your place. And your people.”

Sara thinks back to how she’d felt when Laurel had first talked her into going on the Waverider. “Yes,” she says slowly. “Yes, I have. But…I’m leaving Star City without a Canary…”

Her sister looks briefly indignant. “Excuse me?”

“Well…”

“It has one.” Oddly enough, there’s a light in Laurel’s eyes too. “Maybe not the sort it’s had before…but it _has_ a Canary.” She lifts an eyebrow at Sara. “Just one that’s mainly active in the courtroom, or who will be again soon. And I do think I’ll train a successor. I just have to find a likely one.”

“Dad…”

“Will be fine.” Laurel nods. “He noticed too, you know. How much happier…how much more _you_ …you were again.” She smiles. “And not because of the guy. Not _only_ because of the guy.”

As much as Leonard means to her now, that’s true. Sara lets out a breath she’d barely realized she was holding. “OK,” she says. “Yes. Yes, I’m going back on the Waverider. I feel like it’s where I belong now.”

Laurel looks satisfied. “I’m so glad,” she says softly. “There will always be a place for you here, Sara. But I think maybe this is right for you.” She shakes her head. “You never needed my permission—but you have my blessing, if you want it.”

“Thank you. Me too.” Sara regards her sister a moment. She’s interrupted briefly by a waiter and orders her own lunch, then looks back at Laurel thoughtfully.

“So,” she says, wondering how Laurel will take news of future (if not impending) aunthood. “Keep a secret for me?”

* * *

The bar they find is called the Bonus Box, a gin term that Leonard appreciates, and it’s definitely Saints and Sinners’ brother in spirit. (The locals give them a long side-eye as they enter, but Leonard’s pretty sure his cold glare in return has guaranteed they’ll be undisturbed.)

His burger and fries are classic greasy bar food (a guilty pleasure), though the beer’s crappy—but then, he doesn’t intend to drink much of it anyway. Mick tucks into his own beer and food with alacrity, and they don’t really talk for a while. Once, they probably wouldn’t have really talked at all, Leonard knows. Maybe they’d talk around the edges of an upcoming heist or plan. Nothing more.

Now, though. Now, they have to talk.

There’s nothing more than crumbs when they finally actually look at each other. Mick grunts and polishes off his beer, then rises to go get another. Leonard takes a swig of his, which is barely half gone, and considers his words.

When Mick returns with a fresh beer, Leonard clears his throat, wincing as he realizes how much he sounds like someone preparing to give a speech. Mick eyes him and grunts.

And then he completely undercuts his friend’s planned talk.

“Know you and Blondie might wanna stay here,” he says into his drink. “I get it. But I’m going on the ship with British. Can’t go back to the same old, same old. Ain’t me anymore.”

Leonard stares at him. Mick looks up at his silence and frowns.

“What?” he mutters.

“Nothing. I…” Leonard shakes his head. “I wasn’t expecting that,” he admits. “I’m not sure yet…but I think we’re staying too.”

Mick actually smiles, surprise touching his own face. “Yeah? Huh.” He glances away. “You still gotta steal the Mona Lisa ‘straight off Da Vinci’s easel,’ y’know. Be disappointed if you don’t.”

Leonard’s startled into a laugh. “And the Hope Diamond before it’s discovered?”

“Yeah.” Mick’s smirk slips, then, and it’s his turn to clear his throat, staring into his drink again. Leonard waits, puzzled,

“You and I, we've done a lot of thieving, a lot of cool stuff, a lot of fun,” the other man says haltingly, still not looking at him. “Anyway, I, uh... I just wanted to make sure I said something important that wasn't left unsaid.”

Leonard waits, uncomfortably. He’s not fond of touchy-feely. But for Mick…

“This wasn't a good idea,” Mick mutters, then sighs. He looks up at Leonard, then, and smiles a little.

“You're the best guy I ever knew,” he says, holding his drink up in a toast. “You may not think you're a hero, but you're a hero to me.” He shakes his head, glancing away. “At the Vanishing Point...ah, fuck. That was badass. Saved us all. And you coulda been toast, real easy. I thought you were...brother.”

It’s…unexpected. And while an earlier, different Leonard Snart might have been scornful or so uncomfortable as to ignore the words, this one has changed. A lot.

OK, he’s still a little uncomfortable. Too long pretending he and Mick don’t have hearts, really. But he can feel the sincerity behind the words—the mended fences of this journey and all its painful ups and downs—and he appreciates it.

And so, he holds his beer up too, inclining his head. “Well,” he drawls, “you’re the guy who became the first in—what, millennia?—to break the Time Masters’ programming through sheer spite and willpower alone. Also badass.”

Mick meets his eyes again then, smirking. “Yeah? Yeah. Guess it was.”

“Damn right.” Leonard clinks his glass against Mick’s. “To the two baddest sons of bitches of all time,” he says solemnly, smirking as his friend barks out a laugh. “Time won’t know what hit it.”

“Y’know what, Snart? Pretty sure it already doesn’t.”

* * *

After Laurel’s injury, she’d moved into a ground-floor apartment in a somewhat more residential neighborhood than before. Their dad had taken the second-floor apartment to be nearby, which Sara was aware Laurel was resigned about at this point in time. Eventually, she’ll probably insist they get a bit more distance—but Sara had every intention of being off on the Waverider at that point and no longer available to take sides in family squabbles.

At the moment, however, she’s sprawled on a futon on what Laurel is setting up at her office, staring at the ceiling and wishing she could get to sleep. She’s become used to having a regular bedmate again, for one thing, and recent events have given her a lot to think about.

She’s turning one of those things over her mind when there’s a slight rattle against the window.

Then another. And another.

She’s not surprised at all, when she finally raises the shade and peeks out, to see Leonard standing there, still tossing a handful of pebbles from hand to hand. He smiles as she opens the window, leaning out as he leans against a nearby tree, and Sara feels a smiling tugging at her lips as well.

“Going back to your juvenile delinquent days?” she asks with amusement. “You could have just texted.”

“What fun is that?” He lets the pebbles run through his fingers to the ground and shrugs. “I didn’t expect to be in Star City. Couldn't sleep.”

“Yeah, me too.” Sara studies the drop to the ground, then pushes the window open a little farther and swings one leg out over the sill, then the other. She perches there a moment and shakes her head.

“You know, I thought this place has a pretty good security system,” she tells Leonard with amusement, getting a smirk in return.

“It did,” he allows. “Took me all of five minutes to disable it.” He shrugs as Sara sighs. “I’ll upgrade it a bit before we leave, if your sister and dad are OK with that.”

“You’re lucky Dad’s not down here with a shotgun.” Sara pushes off, landing neatly on the ground before straightening and sauntering over to her unrepentant crook, grabbing his jacket in both hands and pulling him down for a kiss.

When they part, Sara sighs again. “Where’s Mick?” she asks with curiosity. “What _are_ you doing here?”

“At a safehouse not too far away. He snores.” He pauses. “Make a decision?”

It’s a non sequitur in some ways but given that that question is one of the reasons they’re here, Sara gets it. She nods, studying his face, noting what might be worry lines around his eyes, then takes a deep breath, hoping she’s right.

“I want to stay on the Waverider,” she tells him. “I want to see more of time. I want to help Rip. I want...oh, I want to learn to fly the ship a little more. Leonard...are you still good with this?”

But it’s obvious that he is, if you know what to look for, and Sara does. There’s relief, in fact, in the blue eyes and no surprise at all. Sara feels her shoulders relaxing, finally, at his nod. She’d have gone one way or the other, but it’s good that they’re on the same page here.

Still... “What about Mick?” she asks, leaning into Leonard’s embrace and listening to the quiet noise from the street and the sound of an urban owl somewhere above. “Is he...is he going to be OK with it?”

She can feel the chuckle reverberate through his chest. “Turns out, he was planning to stay on the ship with or without us,” Leonard drawls. “Seems that going back to petty or even not-so-petty thievery is kinda boring to him now.”

“Huh.” Sara considers that and smiles. “You know, I think I’m less surprised by that than I thought I’d be.”

“Yeah. Me too.”

* * *

While Sara does her best to try to wheedle Leonard into following her back into the house (and, she says archly, pretending they’re teenagers trying not to attract her dad’s attention), they wind up simply sitting out on the building’s front porch, on a swing the prior residents had left behind. There’s been too much adrenaline, too many decisions to be made lately, and it’s good to just...be...for a little while.

It makes Leonard think of Gabriel Drive, really, updated to the early 21st century and Star City. Which makes him muse that maybe, someday, they will be ready for this sort of calmer existence—or at least, a version of it. And how weird is that?

Eh. They’d probably be bored within days.

Still, Sara’s nestled into his shoulder, and the night is still, and it’s nice to breathe. Leonard’s thoughts wander, from how Rip’s new sort-of-Time-Masters will work, to when he’ll get to see Lisa again and what she’ll think of Sara, to what the others might decide. He can’t see Raymond happily giving up his quest to be a hero—nor Kendra becoming a happy suburban housewife—but they’ve got a kid now, and…

And, of course, that jerks his train of thought back to other musings.

“Do you think Cassandra was always our...descendent?” he asks, voice breaking the quiet as Sara glances up at him. “I mean…things might have happened completely differently. Like the other Snart, and the Sara he knew. Never more than a maybe.”

Sara makes a thoughtful noise.

“I don’t think there’s any way of really knowing,” she says, gently moving the swing with a toe on the ground. “Most of the timeline info is wiped out now, and even before that, Gideon didn’t have much record of her. She said Savage likely obscured that on purpose.”

One thing Leonard _doesn’t_ want to think of is the possibly that the Time Masters had set up their—what would it be, their great-great granddaughter—with Savage as a way to make sure certain things would happen. It’s not like he can kill them again, after all.

But Sara’s speaking again, and he shakes off the unsettling thought, listening.

“He said most things were the same, right? Your double,” she muses. “And if he wound up in a similar position, destroying the Oculus, things had to match in 2166 to some extent. But the whole thing with Cassandra turning coat so quickly was because she’d taken warnings to watch for us and turned them into a sort of, what, fairy tale, in part because of the resemblance. Would that even have happened, on that other Earth? But…”

Leonard’s come to the same conclusion. And now he can feel Sara inescapably putting the other pieces together as well. She tenses, then looks back up at him, and he waits.

“If there was a Cassandra on his Earth,” she says slowly, “and it seems likely there was, and she did the same things, then…”

Leonard nods.

“Then,” he says, staring off into the darkness, “someone needs to get him out. And back to his Sara.”

* * *

And so, yet again, the Legends meet in a vacant lot, as Rip walks out to meet them. Yet again, Sara glances away and realizes that all the usual suspects have turned up. Ray and Kendra, Mick, her and Leonard, even Stein and Jax.

Third time a charm? Well, why not?

“A full complement, again,” the captain marvels, smiling at them. “To be honest, I had my doubts that all of you would be willing to throw in with me.”

“Well, actually…” Ray chimes in, glancing around, but there’s a smile on his face too. “We don’t plan to stay on the ship, at least for the most part. But Rip already knows that.”

“We'll be mostly based at the Refuge,” Kendra concludes. “With Alex.” She spreads her hands out in front of her. “I’ve seen more time than all of you combined, and I want to use the library to continue studying. I can help Rip rebuild.”

“And I’m going to be the new Time Masters’ Q,” Ray says happily. He glances around at them, grinning. “Submarine cars or rocket belts, anyone?”

Sara laughs despite herself. “I want a garrote watch,” she tells him.

“What? Ew. No. How about a wrist dart gun?”

Mick raises his hand solemnly. “I want a bagpipe flamethrower,” he tells Ray, then shrugs at Leonard’s groan and the expressions the request draws. “What? It was in _The World Is Not Enough_.”

Rip shakes his head. “Perhaps the, ah, unique gadgetry can wait until we have more of a system in place,” he says wryly. “As Dr. Palmer and Ms. Saunders have noted, I’m planning to base us at the Refuge. Mary’s help with be invaluable, and if there are any other surviving Time Masters, that’s where they’ll go. We may be able to acquire some more timeships.” He casts a fond look over his shoulder at the Waverider. “I’m not willing to give this one up.”

Nor its AI, Sara thinks with amusement.

“And if those Time Masters take offense at our…assumption of their presumed duties?” Stein asks Rip.

“Well.” The captain’s smile is just a little dark. “We’ll just have to…persuade them otherwise.”

Jax laughs. “Now, that could be fun.”

But Sara’s been thinking about something. “Wait,” she asks. “More ships? But we only have one pilot.”

Rip nods to her. “That’s not entirely true, Ms. Lance.” He glances at Mick. “Mr. Rory? Forgive me, but Chronos always had an excellent reputation as a pilot. I presume you retain those skills?”

Mick blinks at him. “Yeah…” he says slowly. “But…what?” He shakes his head in disbelief. “You’d do that? You’d give _me_ a ship?”

Sara hears Leonard make a pleased noise and glances up at him, grinning, before looking back to Mick. The big man looks rather like Rip’s punched him—through he’d probably know better what to do with that.

The captain’s smile is just a little regretful. “In time, when we’re ready to expand the fleet, yes. It seems like the least I can do to remedy certain…missteps and hurts of the past,” he says, nodding. “You are an asset to this team, Mr. Rory. And _not_ just part of a package deal.” He turns away before Mick can respond. “And now…shall we?”

Leonard chuckles quietly, then offers his arm to Sara. With a laugh, she takes it, and they start for the Waverider with the others,

At least, until she hears the noise behind them and turns a little to look with the rest of the time.

“Is that…” she starts.

“The Waverider,” Rip breathes, turning back to look at his ship as if it had somehow vanished to reappear hurtling through the sky toward them. It hasn’t, though, and…

“Whatever it is,” Jax yells, taking a few steps back, “it's not slowing down!”

“Get down!”

The new ship hits the ground fairly hard, sliding across the already cracked pavement of the lot and just barely missing them. They struggle back to their feet, coughing and choking on smoke, and Sara offers Leonard a hand when one of his ankles seems inclined to turn.

“What the hell,” he growls, looking at Rip, “is going on?”

The captain shakes his head. “To be honest, Mr. Snart, I have absolutely no idea.”

A shape emerges from the smoke around the “new” Waverider then, walking toward them at a particularly intent pace. Leonard unholstered and aims his cold gun, even as Mick does the same with his own weapon, and Sara palms the handle of a knife.

The dark-clad, hooded man, who doesn’t look like anyone Sara knows, stops far enough away that no one takes a shot just yet, scanning them.

“Is this 2016?” he asks urgently. Then, when there’s no response: “ _Is this May 2016_?”

“Who the hell wants to know?” Leonard snaps back, at the same time Jax manages a slightly uncertain “Yeah?”

The man sighs, a barely visible exhale. He reaches up and pulls back his hood, revealing a face that’s no more familiar than it was before.

“You're exactly where you said you'd be,” he tells them, then points at the original Waverider. “Do _not_ get on that ship.” A pause. “If you do, you're all dead.”

“Says who?” Mick barks, gun still aimed.

The mystery man looks at him. Sara, who’s been focusing on his face and expressions, sees an odd mix flick over his features. Disbelief, concern, respect, resolve.

“Says you, Mr. Rory,” he says finally. “ _You_ sent me.”

Mick grunts in surprise, but by then, Rip has finally found his voice. “I'm sorry,” he asks sharply, stepping forward. “Who, exactly, are you?”

The man nods, seemingly unsurprised. “My name is Rex Tyler,” he tells them.

“And I'm a member of the Justice Society of America.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, yeah, there will be a sequel, tentatively called "Through All This Masquerade." It won't be a rewrite of Legends season two, not in the same way, but more its own thing. I had a lot of thoughts about the Justice Society and what was going on storywise before we actually saw them in the show, and I want to explore some of that. It probably won't be an epic like "Chances Are" and "Somewhere on Your Road Tonight," though.
> 
> Probably.


End file.
